The Picture of Crucifixion. In every pain or injustice I suffer, I see "proof" that someone else is guilty....it is the Republicans...the unions...big business...my crummy boss. I make myself a witness to unfairness and injustice, but I cannot crucify myself alone. If I am unfairly treated, my brother also suffers. Sacrifice is total and I cannot sacrifice myself alone. If sacrifice is possible, it would have to include the Whole of God's Creation.
Do not wish to make myself a living symbol of my brother's guilt. Whenever I consent to suffer pain, be deprived, unfairly treated or in need of anything....I accuse a brother of attack upon me (God's Son). I hold a picture of my crucifixion before my brother's eyes, so that he may see his sins written in my blood, closing off the Gate to Heaven and damning him to hell. This is the picture of myself I offer the world. I believe wholeheartedly in this picture of myself.
"Wait! This horror is happening to me, what have I done to deserve this?!" I might have said to myself at one time. Now I know better. I am doing this to myself.
The power of witness brings conviction. The witness is believed because he points beyond himself to what he represents. Yet if I see myself as victim, then someone else must always be guilty. It does not matter which brother is guilty, because if one is guilty, all are guilty....and that includes myself.
If I accept a sick and sorry picture of myself, it punishes the entire Sonship. The sick are merciless to everyone, and in this contagion they seek to kill. For ego always seeks death. The bleak and bitter picture I have sent my brother, I have first myself looked upon in grief and misery.
Let Truth show me a different picture. Its picture witnesses to the Eternal Truth that I cannot be hurt, and points beyond Itself to both my Innocence and my brother's Innocence. When I see this picture, I will show it to my brother. Together we will see that every scar is healed and every tear is wiped away in laughter and Love. Here is proof that the Son has never sinned; that nothing his madness bid him to do was ever done or has ever had effects of any kind.
Attest to my brother's Innocence, not his guilt. My healing is his comfort and health, and proves that illusions are not true; his healing is the same for me. The motivation for the world of separation is a wish for death; I seemed to separate myself from God and now I deserve death. This is the motivation of every worldly thought, act or feeling. These are the witnesses called forth to be believed and lend conviction to a world of illusions. Each has many voices, speaking in different tongues. Yet the message is the same. Adornment of the body seeks to show how lovely are the witnesses for guilt. Concerns about the body demonstrate how frail and vulnerable the body's life is and how easily it is destroyed. Depression speaks of death. The strongest witness to the world's futility is sickness and whatever form sickness takes. It reinforces all other witnesses and helps paint the picture in which sin, guilt and attack are justified.
The sick have reason for each one of their unnatural desires and strange needs. Who could love a life cut short so soon and not witness to the value of "passing" joys? Are the frail not entitled to believe that every stolen scrap of pleasure is the righteous payment for their suffering? Their death will pay the price for all fleeting pleasures, whether they enjoy the benefits or not. The end of "life" must seemingly come, in whatever way that life is spent. So I take pleasure in any fleeting joys that I can.
I witness to the strange belief that separation, sin and death are "real," and that innocence and sin will both end in the termination of the grave. If this were true, I would have reason to be content seeking for passing joys and little pleasures. How futile to see a picture of myself that can never be True.
My function is forgiveness. Forgiveness shows my brother (and of course always myself) that sin is not Real. Truth's picture does not change the body into something it is not, it only takes away all signs of sin and attack. The body, pictured without the purpose of sinfulness and separation, is seen neither sick nor healthy, bad nor good. It is seen without any grounds for judgment at all. The body has no life, but neither is it dead. It stands apart from any and all experience. For now it witnesses to nothing. Its purpose is now open and my mind is free to choose again what the body is for. Now that the body is no longer condemned, it waits for a purpose to be given it that it may fulfill God's function.
Into this empty space where the goal of sin has been removed, is Heaven Free to be remembered. Here Its Peace can come to take the place of death. The body can become a sign of Life, a promise of redemption and a breath of Immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the pungent scent of death. Let the body have healing as its new purpose, then it will send forth the message it received and by its health and loveliness. Let the body receive the Power to represent Eternal and Blissful Life. And to my brother, let my message be, "look brother, at your hand I live!"
The Fear of Healing. To many, healing is frightening. Damaged, sick bodies are accusers. Who has been injured or made ill and could continue to love and trust a brother? He has poured chemicals into the environment...he has broken my heart....she has betrayed me...he has stolen my retirement account. My brother has attacked and will attack again. My damaged body shows that I must be protected from him. To forgive may be an act of charity, but my brother is not deserving. He may be pitied for his guilt but never will he be found "not guilty." And if I bestow forgiveness (even though he has sinned and does not deserve it!) I add to all the guilt that he has earned.
The unhealed cannot pardon. Sickness is a witness that someone has sinned, and although the sinner may be forgiven, his sin will never be forgotten.
No one can forgive a sin that he believes is "real." And sin must be real because it has consequences and those consequences are there for all to see. Forgiveness is nothing if it seeks to pardon what it thinks to be truth. If evil truly exists, then it could never be pardoned. Who can say, "Brother, you have injured me and yet, because I am the better of us two, I pardon you"? His pardon and my hurt cannot exist together. Good cannot be exchanged for evil. One denies the other and makes it false.
To witness sin and yet forgive it, is a paradox that does not know Reason. First, it maintains that what has been done to me (sin) deserves no pardon. Second, by giving pardon, I grant my brother mercy, but retain the proof (consequences) that he is not at all innocent. The injured will always remain accusers.
No one who forgives Truly can suffer; he will not hold onto the "proof" of sin before his brother's eyes. Whoever forgives is healed and in his healing lies the proof that he has Truly pardoned, retaining no trace of condemnation that would be held against any living thing.
My brother thinks my blood is on his hands, so he stands condemned. Yet by my healing, it is given me to show him that sin/guilt/death/separation is only the fabric of a senseless dream. Am I still content to see someone else suffer or someone else befall adversity? If my satisfaction depends on my brother's sacrifice and pain, then I will surely fear God's Healing.
Forgiveness is not real unless it brings healing to both my brother and myself. I must witness that his "sins" have no effect on me to demonstrate that "sin" is not real. I must see my brother in Innocence. Sin is not real and has no effects. Knowing this, how could my brother be guilty? Let myself be healed that I may be forgiven, offering salvation to my brother and myself.
A broken body shows that the mind has not been healed. The miracle of True healing proves that separation/sin/death/guilt are nothing and have no effect. Everything I say or do witnesses to my belief. With God, my body can be the means to teach that my brother never caused my suffering. My body's healing can offer testimony of my brother's Innocence. This testimony can speak with greater Power than a thousand voices. For in a healed body is the forgiveness of my brother all the proof he needs.
A healed body shows that the mind is healed. It witnesses to my brother that he has been forgiven of what he did not do. The miracle undoes all the things the world claims can never been undone. Hopelessness and death must disappear before the Ancient Call of Life. The Ancient Call of the Father to His Son and the Son to Himself will be the last trumpet the world will ever hear. Brother there is no death.
Miracles are Just. They bestow an equal gift of full deliverance from guilt/sin/separation/death. I am healed because I wish my brother well. My healing saves both of us from pain. Healing sees no "specialness" at all. It does not come from pity, but from Love, and Love would prove that all suffering is illusion.
From the idea of Self as many, there follows a split function. If I point out and correct only my brother's errors, then I have corrected only half the error. I believe that half the error is all of it. So my brother's "sins" become the central target for correction. My own "sins" are only mistakes, but his "sins" merit punishment. Mine should be overlooked. With this interpretation, I will not even see my own mistakes. The focus of correction has been placed outside of myself, on one who seems not to be a part of me. My brother becomes the focus of my hate, unworthy to be part of me, quite apart from myself. What is left without his presence is perceived as all of me. God gives us both the same function to help us recognize our Oneness.
Correction is the function given both of us, but neither one alone. When it is fulfilled, it corrects mistakes in both of us. It cannot leave mistakes in one and set the other free. A divided purpose cannot be God's goal because a divided purpose cannot be shared. So my brother and I share the same function: forgiveness.
Forgive everyone and everything and leave correction to Heaven Which knows only of Unity. Its single purpose Unifies the parts of me that I perceive as separate. Each forgives the other, that he may accept his other half as part of him.
Beyond all Symbols. True Power opposes nothing, for opposition would weaken It and weakened-power is a contradiction. Weak-strength is meaningless and power used to weaken, limits all. The world's idea of power is ultimately weak and limited.
True Power is unopposed to be Itself. Weakness cannot intrude without changing It into something It is not. Who can understand double concepts, such as "weakened-power" or "hateful-love"? I can see examples in the world of illusions of just exactly these double concepts. Rome was powerful, but then it was destroyed (weakened-power.) I love my spouse or my siblings, but sometimes they say or do things that inspire anything but Love.....exasperation, disappointment, sadness (hateful-love.) Maybe "hate" is too strong of a word, but ACIM tells me that anything that is not Wholly Love, falls under the heading of fear, which includes sadness, hate, grief, loss, etc.
Everyone and everything in the world of separation witnesses to this dichotomy. The world of illusion is one in which everything has an opposite. In Heaven there is no opposite to Love, Joy, Peace, Wholeness, Bliss, etc. But I desire to perceive a world apart from God, so I seemed to take everything I know in God's World and give it an opposite. My world of illusion is quite meaningless, because opposites exist only in dreams. Symbols represent ideas that cannot exist. Symbols stand for empty space and nothingness. Can nothingness and emptiness interfere with my Awareness of Reality? Only in dreams and only if I want to invest my belief in something other than Heaven.
The body is a symbol of the separation, so when I see a brother, I see nothing. There is nothing to attack or deny; to love or hate; nothing powerful or weak. The picture I see of my brother is nothingness, so let the empty space it occupies be recognized as vacant and the time devoted to seeing it be perceived as idly spent. Allow it to be a silent invitation for Truth to enter and make Itself at home. There is no way to prepare for this. Just leave an empty space and God will fill it.
Power with no opposite is what Creation Is. There are no symbols for Truth. The undoing of my distorted thought system must be Kind, and so the first replacement for my picture of separation, is a picture of another sort. There is no symbol for Truth and Totality. Reality is Known without a form; unpictured and unseen. Even forgiveness is not wholly free of limits. Yet forgiveness is the means by which Truth is temporarily represented. It lets God make an exchange of pictures possible, until the time when learning aids are meaningless and learning done. No learning aid has any use beyond the goal of learning. When its aim has been accomplished, it is functionless. Yet during the learning interval it has a use for me.
The choices I fear to lose, I never had. I do not know the Power of a Peace that opposes nothing. Yet, no other Power can exist. Give welcome to the Power beyond forgiveness and beyond the world of symbols and limitations.
A Power Wholly Limitless has come; not to destroy, but to receive Its Own.
The Quiet Answer. In Quietness all things are Answered and in Quietness is every problem resolved. Conflict has no answer or resolution, because conflict's purpose is to make no resolution possible. A problem set in conflict has no answer. What would be an answer from one point of view is not an answer in another point of view. In a world of separation, I am in conflict. Let it be clear to me that in the dream-world, I have no resolution to anything at all. Yet if God gave an Answer, I have no problems, for what He Wills has already been done.
God's Answer does not involve time. Every problem can be answered now. In my insane state of mind, solution is impossible. Yet God has given me a way of reaching another State of mind where the Answer lies. Such is the Holy Instant. It is Here that all my problems should be brought and left. Here they belong, for here is their Answer. It is pointless to attempt to solve a problem in a world of separation. Yet if the problem is brought to where the Answer is, it surely must be resolved. In the Holy Instant the problem will be Answered and resolved. Outside of This, there will be no solution.
The dream-world asks only one question: "Of these illusions, which is true? Which ones offer Peace and Joy? Which can bring escape from the world's pain?" Whatever form the question takes, its purpose is the same. It asks only to establish the "reality" of the world of separation, and answers only in the form of preference: "Which sin (illusion) do I prefer?" It dictates the answer even as it asks. The answer to the questions of the world are contained within the questions that are asked.
An honest question is a learning tool that asks for something I do not know. Only within the Holy Instant can an honest question honestly be asked. Here it is possible to separate my desires from the answer. God's Answer is provided Everywhere. Yet it is only in the Holy Instant that I can hear It.
Attempt to solve no problems in the world. Within the world, answers merely raise other questions leaving the first unanswered. Bring the problem to the only Place that holds the answer Lovingly for me. In the Holy Instant, I can bring the question to the Answer and receive the Answer that was made for me.
The Healing Example. The only way to offer healing is to be healed myself. The miracle will extend without my help, but my acceptance is needed that it can begin. Accept the miracle of healing for myself, and it will go forth because of what it is. The miracle's nature is to extend itself the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and received. No one can ask another to be healed, but I can let myself be healed and then offer a brother what I have received. I can only offer another what I myself have first received. I must first accept the miracle and accept healing for myself in order to be able to offer it to someone else. God speaks to me and by my accepting His Message does His Voice extend.
Only when the miracle of healing has been demonstrated, is it proved. If I desire only healing, I will heal. My single purpose makes this possible. If I do not accept healing for myself or I fear healing, then it cannot come through me. The only thing required for healing is a lack of fear (judgment, hatred, attack, sadness, envy, conflict, etc). This does not mean conflict must be gone forever from my mind, for if it were there would be no need for healing. But it does mean, if only for an instant, that I Love without fear. An instant is sufficient. Miracles do not depend on time.
The Holy Instant is the home of miracles. From here each Son is reborn as witness to a State of Mind where conflict has been transcended and Peace has been reached. I carry comfort from the Place of Peace into the battleground (the world of separation) demonstrating that war has no effects.
All the hurt that war (life in the dream-world) has sought to bring ~ broken bodies, shattered limbs, the screaming dying, the silent dead ~ are gently lifted up and comforted. There is no sadness where a miracle has come to heal. Nothing more than just one instant of my Love ~ without attack ~ is necessary that all this occur. In that one instant I am healed and in that single instant is all healing done. A dying world asks only that I rest an instant from attack on myself that it be healed.
Come to the Holy Instant and be healed. Nothing I receive There is left behind on my returning to the world. Being Blessed, I will bring Blessing back with me. Life is given me to give the dying world. Suffering eyes will no longer accuse but shine in thanks. The Radiance of the Holy Instant will Light my eyes and give them Sight to see beyond all suffering, seeing the face of Christ instead. Healing replaces suffering.
My healing is everything the world needs for healing; one lesson Perfectly learned. When I return to the world and forget my lesson, the world will gently remind me of what I taught. Happily I will perceive the many friends I thought were enemies.
Problems are not specific but in the dream-world, they take specific forms. No one understands the nature of his problems, because if he did the world would cease to exist. The world's very nature is that it is not understood. So while I perceives it, I perceive in error. Healing is apparent in "specific" instances, but generalizes to include all instances; this is because they are really the same despite their different forms.
My healing will extend and will be brought to problems that I thought were not my own. It will also be apparent that my many "different" problems will be solved as one.
Leave my learning to the One Who understands and guarantees my success. My part is only to apply what I learn. God will do the rest. The Power of my learning will be proved to me by all the many thousand witnesses it finds. Yet all the witnesses that I see will be far less than all there really are. Infinity cannot be understood by adding up its separate parts. Each brother may seem to have a different problem from the rest, yet they are solved together with a common Answer.
Accept healing for myself and the Peace it offers me. What occurs in the Holy Instant will remain with me Forever. My healing will be one of Its effects. Healing is God's Gift to me. My acceptance is my gift to God and to myself.
The Witnesses to Sin. Pain seems to demonstrate the body's "reality." It is a loud, obscuring voice whose shrieks hide what Truth says and keeps Its Words from my Awareness. Pain requires attention, drawing it away from Truth and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they are both a means to make the body "real." They share a common purpose, so they are the same. This is the law of purpose. Pleasure and pain are equally unreal, because their purpose (making the body real) cannot be achieved. They are a means for nothing. They have a goal without meaning.
"Sin" shifts from pain to pleasure and again to pain. Either witness carries the same message: "I am here within this body and I can be hurt...I can have pleasure, but only at the cost of pain." The pleasure of sex is followed by the pain of childbirth; the pleasure of wealth is followed by the pain of envy and greed. These witnesses are joined by many more. Each one seems different because it has a different name or form, so it seems to answer to a different sound. But the witnesses to sin and separation are all alike. Call pleasure pain, and it will hurt. Call pain a pleasure and pain will be felt no more. Sin's witnesses shift from name to name, as one steps forward and another steps back. Whichever is front and center makes no difference. Sin's witnesses hear only the call of death.
The body, purposeless in itself, seems to hold all my memories and hopes. I use its eyes to see and its ears to hear. It does not know anything. It shows me only what I tell it to.
God Loves whatever I hold dear. For each witness to the body's death, God will send a Witness to Life. Each miracle Truth brings is witness to the body's unreality. Pains and pleasures It heals alike. Fear witnesses to death, the miracle witnesses to Life. The dying live, the dead rise, and pain has vanished. The miracle does not speak for itself, but for what it represents. It stands for what is beyond forgiveness and is True.
A tiny stab of pain...a little worldly pleasure...the anguish of death....a woeful cry for help within a world of misery......are all a single sound: a call for healing. There is no need to suffer anymore. The suffering and sorrow of the world have made the world deaf to the need for salvation and forgiveness. The salvation and happiness of the world awaits my healing, for in my healing is the world healed.
The Dreamer of the Dream. Suffering is witness to what the world has done to injure me. The world's demented version of salvation is shown clearly here. I see myself attacked unjustly by something not myself. I seem to have no idea of what brought on the attack. I am the "victim" of "something else" ~ a thing outside myself ~ for which I cannot possibly be held responsible. I must be innocent, because I do not know what I have done to deserve suffering.
Look on the problem as it is, not the way I have set it up under heavy clouds of complication. Without the clouds, the problem will emerge in all its primitive simplicity and is quite absurd when clearly seen. No one has difficulty making up his mind to let a simple problem be solved if it is seen as hurting him and can be easily removed.
The world's reasoning is this: "You are the cause of what I do. Your presence justifies my wrath. You exist and think apart from me. While you attack, I must be innocent. What I suffer is from your attack." It seems sensible because it looks as if the world is hurting me, therefore there is no need to seek any further for a cause.
But there is indeed a need! Each one must escape the world's condemnation and judgment. I am joined with my brothers in sharing this need, but I do not recognize it. Vengeance must have a focus otherwise the avenger's knife is in my own hands, pointed at myself. Ego requires that I see it in another's hands in order to be the victim.
In my division of the Sonship was the first attack upon myself. Do not look for another cause. There are many witnesses to "evil," but my desire to separate from Heaven is the only cause of all the problems of the world. My mind is sick, and the world is a thought in my mind.
I was once unaware of the cause of everything the world seemed to thrust upon me. Of one thing I was sure: I was not guilty. I made the world of separation, but I hid this from myself. This is how all illusions came about. Whatever "cause" a problem seemed to have was something quite apart from myself and separate from my mind. I do not doubt the reality of this because I have hidden my part in making illusions and making them seem real. It seems that I cannot choose to Awaken from a dream that I did not make. So I stand helpless, a "victim" of a world outside me.
A brother separated from myself...an ancient enemy...a murderer who stalks me in the night and plots my death, planning for it to be lingering and slow. This is my dream. Yet underneath this dream is another, in which I become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and destroyer of my brother.
The cause of all suffering is in my mind, and it is in my mind that it will be undone. I am the dreamer of the world of dreams. Nothing more than an idle dream has terrified God's Son. So fearful is the dream, so seemingly real, I could not suddenly Awaken to Reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear. Let a Gentle dream precede my Awakening. Allow a calmer mind to welcome the Voice Who calls with Love. God Willed that I Awaken Gently and with Joy.
Now the choice is mine to make: a sleeping death with dreams of evil, or a Happy Awakening to the Joy of Life.
I now know, I have a choice: Life or death, Waking or sleeping, Peace or war, Reality or dreams. There is a risk of thinking that death will bring me Peace. Death is the opposite of Life and brings nothing. Death does not exist. God's World knows no opposite. Life is Peace. Awaken to Life and forget all thoughts of death.
Accept the Happy dream God gives me instead of my dream of terror. It is not difficult to change a dream once the dreamer (me) has been recognized. Rest in Truth. Allow Its Gentle dreams to take the place of those I dreamed in terror. Truth brings forgiving dreams.
A smile has come to lighten up my sleeping face. The sleep is Peaceful now, for these are Happy dreams. Dream softly of my sinless brother, who Unites with me in Holy Innocence. From this Happy dream the Lord of Heaven will, Himself, Awaken His Beloved Son.
Dream of my brother's kindnesses instead of dwelling on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dream about instead of counting up his errors. Forgive him his illusions and give thanks for all his helpfulness. Do not brush aside his many gifts because he is not Perfect in my dreams. He represents my Self and the Father. In my brother is my salvation. He offers me Life.
The "Hero" of the Dream. The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There is no dream without the body; the body does not exist outside the dream, yet it acts as if it were something to be seen and believed. It takes the central place in every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by other bodies, born into the world, living a little while then united in dust with other bodies dying like itself. In the brief time allotted it to live, the body seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Safety and comfort are its main concerns. It tries to look for pleasure, avoiding things that would be hurtful.
The dreaming of the world takes many forms. The body seeks to prove its "reality." It decorates itself with things it has bought with the little "valuable" metal discs or paper strips. It works to get them doing senseless things, then it tosses them away for more senseless things it does not need or want. It hires other bodies to protect its senseless things, then collects more senseless things to call its own. It looks about for special bodies that can share its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. In other phases of the dream, it is the slave of bodies that hurt and torture it.
The body's serial adventures ~ from birth to death ~ are the theme of every dream the world has ever had. The "hero" of the dream never changes. The hero's purpose never changes. Though the dream takes many forms and seems to show a great variety of places and events in which the "hero" finds himself, the dream has only one purpose, taught in many different ways. The single lesson that it tries to teach, again and again and again, is this: I am separated from God and at the mercy of the world I see. And so I wander idly in and out of places and events, a figure in a dream.
No one asleep and dreaming remembers the attack on himself. No one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of a "body" or a "world." He believes himself separate and that things are being done to him.
I am the dreamer. How serious my world seems to be, yet if I recognized the illusion, I would see at once how ridiculous illusions are and would approach them instead with laughter and disbelief.
Into Eternity Where All Is One, crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God forgot to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea with the possibility of both accomplishment and real-seeming effects.
A Timelessness is which "time" is made real...a part of God that can oppose Itself...a separate brother as an enemy...a mind limited by a body. The world I see portrays my apparent separation from God. Except I think that what I did is being done to me and the guilt placed outside myself in a guilty world. Guilt keeps me narrowly confined within a body, which the world punishes because of all the sinful things bodies do. I have no power to make bodies stop their evil deeds, because I believe I did not make them and cannot control their actions, purpose, or fate.
I believe that others are doing to me what I think I did to them. So I blame "others" and overlook the cause (my mind). I try to keep my innocence, by pushing the guilt outside myself....yet I never quite let it go. It is not easy to perceive the joke of it all, when all around me, my eyes behold its heavy consequences.....yet I hide the cause (my mind) from myself. Without being aware of the cause, the world's effects seem serious and sad indeed.
In gentle laughter Truth perceives the cause (me). It requests that I bring each terrible effect to It, that we may look together on its nothingness and laugh awhile. I look only at the effects, Truth sees just the cause (me). Perhaps I come in tears but It will tell me, "it is only a dream," and I will leave this Holy Instant with my laughter.
The secret of salvation is this: I AM DOING THIS TO MYSELF.
No matter what form the attack, no matter who takes the role of enemy or attacker, whatever seems to be the cause of pain and suffering.......I am doing this to MYSELF.
If I knew I was dreaming, I would not react at all to the figures in the dream. Let them be as hateful and vicious as them may, they could have no effect on me unless I failed to realize IT IS MY DREAM. Heaven will repeat this to me over and over and over, until it has been learned. Whatever hurt I bring to Him, Heaven will answer with this very simple Truth: I AM DOING THIS TO MYSELF. This one answer takes away every form of sorrow and pain.
I will understand that miracles reflect this simple statement: "I have done this to myself and this I can undo." Salvation is a secret I have kept only from myself. How differently I will perceive the world when this is recognized.
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