Rules for Decision. I do not always know when I am making a decision, but decisions are continuous. With a little practice on the ones I recognize, a group begins to form which carries me through the rest. Do not let myself become preoccupied with every step I take. If I find resistance strong and dedication weak, I am not ready. Do not fight myself.
- Make no decisions by myself. Do not judge situations where I will be called upon to respond. If I judge, I set the rules for how to react and the result will be confusion, uncertainty and fear. My major problem is that I make my decision, then I ask Heaven for help. Ask first thing each morning that Heaven guide me through the day. It needs only my willingness, and I indicate my willingness by asking for help. Plus, it is a good habit to get into; it reminds me that I do not know anything....I thought the world was Real, did I not? My day is not at random. It has been set by my choice for illusion or Reality. Ask Heaven FIRST, then go about my day.
- The day I want, will be given me. If I make no decisions by myself this day will be given me. Heaven can direct me without the interference of my fear. Nothing can be done without some form of union, be it a dream of illusions or the Voice for God. Unite with Heaven. Let the answers be given to me. The kind of day I want, is what I offer the world.
- Ask again. At times I will have already judged and decided for myself. I will know this because I will feel unsettled or angry, smug or self-satisfied. Just remember once again the day I want and recognize that something has occurred that is not part of it. Again, give all decisions over to Heaven.
- I can decide that I do not like how I feel. If I recognize that I feel unsettled or angry, I can choose again. At least I recognize this....which paves the way for the next easy step...
- What Heaven gives, I want and need. If I feel uncomfortable, remind myself of this: Heaven is not forcing me against my will. What Heaven gives I want and am asking for.
- Ask to see this another way. I have recognized that I do not like the way I feel. Now I can change my mind about the day and remember what I really want.
- Acknowledge my willingness to be helped. Recognize that I am willing to be shown. It is easier to have a happy day if I prevent unhappiness from entering at all. This takes practice.
Knowing who I am ~ Son of God ~ and recognizing that God's Will is my will is my Freedom. Unless I fulfill my function as God's Son and do my will, I will not be content. To oppose God is to make a choice against my Self, for God and His Son are One.
It is not my will to hate, judge or attack. This makes me a prisoner to fear, a slave to death and a little creature with a little life. The Son of God knows only His Father's Love. This I will remember when I brush the dark clouds from my eyes.
God made me Co-Creator along with Him. My forgiveness of the world of illusion and the brothers who seem to be apart from me, is my Holy function in the dream. Look upon my brother as a friend. In him is my salvation and in me is his.
Beyond All Idols. Idols are limits, but my will is All-encompassing and Limitless. My will has no form and is not content to be expressed in form. No form will ever bring me Happiness. By choosing illusions in whatever form, it is as if I am saying, "I have no need of Everything.....I only want this little thing and I will make it everything to me." Idols/illusions will never satisfy me. If I choose idols, I ask for loss. God gives me Everything. Choose Truth and Everything is mine.
What form can substitute for the Love of the Father and the Son? It is not form I want. My will cannot be reduced to form. God's Creation can never be content with small ideas and little things.
Behind the search for every idol lies the yearning for Completion. Wholeness has no form. To seek a special person or thing to "complete" me, only indicates I feel lack. If I feel lack, my mind is sick because the Son of God can suffer no lack. Yet I am dreaming and I believe I am incomplete, for that is what a world of illusions was made to show me. It was made to separate me from my Wholeness. No matter what form I desire, form will never complete me.
It is never the form I want. I want what I think it offers me ~ Completion. I could never be satisfied with empty forms. What I will search for and never find in a world of dreams, is my Completion. I am Whole and Complete only in God.
I do not need to seek for Completion, Completion is what I am. The thoughts I think are in my mind and I am in the Mind Which thought of me. There are no separate parts in God's Mind. It is forever One, Eternally United and at Peace. I am in Heaven dreaming of exile.
In God is my Reality kept Safe. I rest in Certainty and Perfect Peace. I have never left the Mind of my Creator. There is no Reality outside of God or outside of me. My One Reality is with my Father.
Truth Behind Illusions. Nothing will satisfy me in a world of illusions and I will attack what does not satisfy. I always fight illusions because I do not see that I made them up. The Truth beyond illusions is so Lovely and so Quiet in Loving Gentleness, if I were Aware of It I would lay down my defenses and rush to Its Embrace. Truth never attacks nor forces Itself on me. I have made idols in place of Truth. I attack only false ideas, never Truthful ones. All idols are false and I attack them for what they represent (separation). I created separation and now I attack it. This sounds insane, but a world apart from God would be insane if it were possible.
The wearying, dissatisfying gods I made are children's toys. A child is frightened when a figure springs up from a closed box.....or when a soft, silent stuffed bear begins to squeak as the child takes hold of it. Boxes and bears are not suppose to be scary; the rules have failed and broken the child's control of what surrounds him. Yet, it is not the boxes and bears that deceived him; they broke no rules nor make his world unsafe and chaotic.
The gap I believe exists between my brother and I, myself and the world, and me and everything around me is filled with toys in countless forms. Each one seems to break the rules I set for it. Each form was not the desirous thing I thought it was. But I am not endangered. I can laugh at popping heads and squeaking toys, just as the child who learns they are no threat. Yet while I choose to play with them, I will perceive that they obey certain rules and when they seem to break these rules and frighten me, they represent a threat.
Reality observes the Laws of God, not the rules I set. It is God's Laws that guarantee my Safety. Illusions obey no laws. They seem to dance a little while, according to the rules I set for them, but they eventually always fail. Idols are only toys, so I will not grieve for them. Their dancing never brought me Joy, but neither should they frighten me or make me sad. Neither cherish nor attack them, but merely look at them as children's toys without a single meaning of their own. See one and I have seen them all. See nothing in them for they cannot harm me.
Appearances deceive because they are appearances, not Reality. Do not dwell on them in any form for they only obscure Reality and bring fear because they hide Truth. Do not attack what it is I made to deceive me. Attack has the power to make illusions "real" for me. Yet their "reality" is nothing. Who could be fearful of nothing?
Look calmly at my toys. Understand they are only idols which dance to empty desires. Do not give them another thought, for they are nothing.
Appearances deceive only the mind that wants to be deceived. I can make a simple choice not to desire whatever I think an idol will give me. When I declare my freedom from idols, I am Free. Do not concern myself with how this will happen, because I cannot understand. Mighty changes can be brought about quickly when I give my small willingness to God
Salvation is a paradox. Salvation is still within the world of dreams, but it is a happy dream. It asks that I forgive what no one ever did. It asks me to overlook what is not there. I am asking only for God's Will and the will of His Son, which is my own. I am asked to let myself be Free and look no longer for the things I do not want. Do not substitute illusions for God's Will. Illusions will never bring me Happiness.
Substitute forgiveness for fear or any form of fear (hate, greed, sadness, grief, etc). This is the rule for a Happy dream.
Salvation asks that I sacrifice nothing and only receive Everything.
The Only Purpose. The only good purpose for the world of illusions is FORGIVENESS. The "Real World" is a state of mind with the single purpose of forgiveness. The value of forgiveness is perceived taking the place of idols. No demands are made of anyone or anything, only a wish to understand all things as they really are. The world then becomes a place of Hope. No one stands outside this Hope. The world has been united in belief that its purpose is one which all must share for Hope to be more than just a dream. Forgiveness is not needed in Heaven. I will remain in dreams until forgiveness is made perfect in me. Yet I can be certain I will go beyond forgiveness
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There is Hope of Happiness so Sure and Constant I can barely stay and wait a little longer with my feet still touching earth. Yet I am glad to wait until every hand is joined with mine and every heart made ready. For in this, am I made ready for the step in which all forgiveness is left behind. The final step is God's.
There is no need for me to understand anything, for Understanding is Heaven Itself. The Real World has a purpose still beneath Eternity, but fear is gone because my purpose is forgiveness not idol worship. In forgiveness is Heaven's Son prepared to be himself and to remember that the Son of God knows everything his Father Knows and understands it Perfectly with Him.
The Real World is a state in which the mind has learned how easily idols disappear when they are still perceived but not desired. How willingly the mind can let them go when it has understood that idols are nothing, nowhere and purposeless.
Forgiveness is the Real World's purpose. It replaces my former goal of sin and guilt. All that stood between my image of myself and the Son of God which I am, is brushed away by forgiveness. The gap between my brother and I was never there. What the Son of God knew in Heaven, he knows again.
Perhaps I still look back and see an illusion I desire. Yet my path has been set away from idols toward Reality. When I join my brother's hand in forgiveness, I take the hand of Christ. The face of Christ (my brothers and I forgiven, healed and Whole) must be look upon before the Father is remembered. The Father is unremembered until His Son has reached beyond forgiveness.
How easy and light is my path when I recognize Whose hand I hold! I have everything I need to walk with Perfect Confidence away from fear and illusions forever to the Gate of Heaven Itself. With Heaven I cannot fail.
An ancient hate is passing from the world and with it goes all hatred and fear. Do not look back, for what lies ahead is all I have ever wanted. To give up the world is not a sacrifice. I never wanted it! All "happiness" brought some kind of pain. Everything in the world has been bought at the cost of suffering. Joy has no price, It is my Sacred Right.
Be merciful to my brother. In him is my salvation and in me is his. My forgiveness is what makes that clear to me.
The Justification for Forgiveness. Anger is never justified. Attack has no foundation. Illusions are not Real, so what is there to attack? Nothing. It is here that escape from my world of illusions and all its fear begins....and will be made Complete.
I am not asked to forgive anything Real and True. If illusions and sin were Real then attack would be justified. But because they are not Real and do not exist, my attack does nothing except confuse me and reinforce the "reality" of illusions.
All attack is a call for Love. Murder if it were true, would be unpardonable. If it were possible to end Life, it would be possible to oppose and usurp God. Life has no end and it is impossible to destroy what God Created.
Forgiveness is the only sane response to something I think is Real but does not actually exist. Attack is never justified because attack is an unreal response to something or someone that does not exist.
The Real World is achieved when I perceive that the foundation of forgiveness is quite Real and fully justified. Forgiveness recognized as deserving (and all forgiveness IS) will heal. I must forgive God's Son entirely. Look on my brother with the willingness to see him as he is (the Son of God). Despite what he may "say" or "do," the Son of God in him will recognize the Son of God in me. God's Son is Perfect. If I see anything less than Perfection in my brother, I will see the same lack in myself.
I could not make an error that could ever change Truth. The world of separation and illusions does not exist. To know this, I am asked to forgive all that I see.
The New Interpretation. Everything in the world means something different to each brother. There is no Light here in which things can be clearly seen and understood. No one agrees on what anything means. It is part of a distorted script that has no meaning and is forever unintelligible. This is not communication. My dark dreams are only the senseless, isolated scripts that I write in my sleep. Do not look to a world of confusion for meaning.
Without God nothing has meaning. And meaning cannot be True if it changes constantly. Heaven has one purpose for the world of separation, FORGIVENESS. It is a Holy purpose if undertaken with Heaven as my Guide. Only this constant purpose can offer stability. A common purpose is the only means whereby perception can be stabilized. There is one interpretation of the world and all events here: to experience a world without God. No matter what the illusion, what the event or situation, no matter what symbol is before me, communication with Reality can only be established when there is one interpretation of all that I see. Only then can I communicate with my brother and Heaven and they with me, in symbols all can understand.
There is One Interpreter ~ Heaven ~ and through Heaven's use of symbols all are joined. A common language lets us speak to all our brothers and to understand with them that forgiveness has been given to all of us. Thus we can communicate again.
Changeless Reality. Appearances deceive, shift and change. Everything in my world will change, yet I still think it Real, hence my "reality" is reduced to form and capable of change. If I fail to see beyond appearances, I am deceived. Heaven's Reality is Changeless and deceives no one, and its Changelessness is what makes it Real. Reality must transcend all form to be Itself. Reality cannot change.
My brother has a Changelessness in him beyond his appearance. It is obscured by my changing views of him which I perceive as his "reality." Happy dreams still rely on form, but I am getting closer to the end of time. The Happy dream I have of my brother takes the form of his Perfect health, his Perfect Freedom from all forms of lack, his Perfect Safety from disasters of all kinds. He is not bound by loss or suffering in any form because form can so easily be changed. The miracle demonstrates that form was never Real.
Appearances are unreal because they change. Heaven is Changeless.
What is temptation but a desire to make illusions Real? Some forms of illusions have a powerful appeal that makes them harder to resist than others. When I am tempted, I deny Reality and become the willing slave of what I chose in place of Reality. I would like to accept salvation as long as certain illusions can come with me. But remember, no matter how enticing the illusion, behind the appearance of form is always death.
The Christ in my brother is Perfect. Look upon This when I perceive my brother. Let there be no dreams about him that I would prefer to see. Yet do not be guilty and afraid when I am tempted by a dream of what he is. Just do not give it the power to replace the Christ in him. All false appearances will fade when I look only for the Christ in him. And when I see the Christ in him, I will see myself.
I forgive my brother because he did not hurt me and he could never hurt me; he did nothing to me. He did nothing that could cause me pain or diminish me in any way.
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