...continued from above.
You who were created by love like itself can hold no grievances and know your Self.
The ego's plan for salvation centers around holding grievances. It maintains that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. Thus, the source of salvation is constantly perceived as outside yourself.
Each grievance is a declaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says, "If this were different, I would be saved." The change of mind necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.
The role assigned to your own mind in this plan, then, is simply to determine what, other than itself, must change if you are to be saved. According to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable provided that it will not work. This ensures that the fruitless search will continue. This ensures the illusion - the dream - will persist...even though this hope has always failed...still hoping that there is still grounds for hope in other places, other things, other persons or other situations.
Perhaps Karl Marx can yet save America! Perhaps you can dial back the clock to the happy days of the 50's when America was perfect! Perhaps the next presidential candidate will save the American Dream!
Such is the ego's plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego's basic doctrine, "Seek but do not find".
In American, you have the right to pursue happiness, but never to find it. For what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it where it is not?
God's plan for salvation works simply because, by following His Guide's direction, you seek for salvation where it is.
But if you are to succeed, as God promises you will, you must be willing to seek there only.
Otherwise, your purpose is divided and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation that are diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can only bring confusion, misery, and a deep sense of failure and despair.
While we have recognized that the ego's plan for salvation is the opposite of God's, we have not yet emphasized that it is an active attack on His plan, and a deliberate attempt to destroy it.
In the attack, God is assigned the attributes which are actually associated with the ego, while the ego appears to take on the attributes of God.
Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see.
The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego's need for grievances, which are necessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that see to attack you and call for "righteous" judgment.
These figures become the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. They stand between your awareness and your brother's reality. Beholding them, you do not know your brothers or your Self.
What middlemen come to mind? C'mon! If you've read the headlines, you know the names of the middlemen.
Your will is lost to you in this strange bartering, in which guilt is trader back and forth, and grievances increase with each exchange.
Today, we are considering the will you share with God. This is not the same as the ego's idle wishes, out of which darkness and nothingness arise.
The will you share with God has all the power of creation in it. The ego's idle wishes are unshared, and therefore have no power at all.
The ego's wishes are not idle in the sense that they can make a world of illusions in which your belief can be very strong. But they are idle indeed in terms of creation. They make nothing that is real.
The body is not real. Furthermore, it is not your will...the will you share with God.
Grievances darken your mind, and you look upon a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light.
As you traffic in grievances, your will seems to be lost in a world gone wild. Can such a world have been created by the Will the Son of God shares with his Father? Did God create disaster for His Son? Would God create a world that kills Himself?
Creation is the Will of Both together. Since this world is neither your will or our Father's it must not be creation. It must be a mistake.
There is another world to see. It is not Heaven, but the light of Heaven shines on it. The light is in it because it does not oppose the Will of God. The ego's idle wishes have been withdrawn. The light that shines upon this like-Heaven world reflects your will, so it must be in you. So that must be where to look.
Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. A barrier of grievances stands between you and the light within you.
The barrier of grievances is easily passed, and cannot stand between you and your salvation. The reason is very simple. Do you really want to be in hell? Do you really want to suffer and die?
Forget the ego's arguments which seek to prove all this is really Heaven - that America is God's promised land. You know it is not so. You cannot want this for yourself.
There is a point beyond which illusions cannot go. Suffering is not happiness, and it is happiness you really want. Such is your will in truth. And so salvation is your will as well.
You will succeed today if you remember that salvation is for yourself - not a preferred country within an illusionary world.
Salvation is for you. Above all else, you want the freedom to remember Who you really are. Today, let the ego stand powerless before your will. Your will is free, and nothing can prevail against it.
Today, let your will be done, and end forever the insane belief that it is hell in place of Heaven that you choose. God's plan for salvation is wholly in accord with your will. It is not the purpose of an alien power, thrust upon you unwillingly.
There is a time appointed for the release of the Son of God from hell and from idle wishes. For you, this time can be today. Be willing to look upon the light within you and be saved.
As you look within, determine to keep your will clearly in mind, and tell yourself with gentle firmness and quiet certainty:
I will there be light. Let me behold the light that reflects God's Will and mine.
Then let your will assert itself, joined with the power of God and united with your Self.
Jesus
You who were created by love like itself can hold no grievances and know your Self.
The ego's plan for salvation centers around holding grievances. It maintains that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved. Thus, the source of salvation is constantly perceived as outside yourself.
Each grievance is a declaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says, "If this were different, I would be saved." The change of mind necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.
The role assigned to your own mind in this plan, then, is simply to determine what, other than itself, must change if you are to be saved. According to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable provided that it will not work. This ensures that the fruitless search will continue. This ensures the illusion - the dream - will persist...even though this hope has always failed...still hoping that there is still grounds for hope in other places, other things, other persons or other situations.
Perhaps Karl Marx can yet save America! Perhaps you can dial back the clock to the happy days of the 50's when America was perfect! Perhaps the next presidential candidate will save the American Dream!
Such is the ego's plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego's basic doctrine, "Seek but do not find".
In American, you have the right to pursue happiness, but never to find it. For what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it where it is not?
God's plan for salvation works simply because, by following His Guide's direction, you seek for salvation where it is.
But if you are to succeed, as God promises you will, you must be willing to seek there only.
Otherwise, your purpose is divided and you will attempt to follow two plans for salvation that are diametrically opposed in all ways. The result can only bring confusion, misery, and a deep sense of failure and despair.
While we have recognized that the ego's plan for salvation is the opposite of God's, we have not yet emphasized that it is an active attack on His plan, and a deliberate attempt to destroy it.
In the attack, God is assigned the attributes which are actually associated with the ego, while the ego appears to take on the attributes of God.
Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see.
The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego's need for grievances, which are necessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that see to attack you and call for "righteous" judgment.
These figures become the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. They stand between your awareness and your brother's reality. Beholding them, you do not know your brothers or your Self.
What middlemen come to mind? C'mon! If you've read the headlines, you know the names of the middlemen.
Your will is lost to you in this strange bartering, in which guilt is trader back and forth, and grievances increase with each exchange.
Today, we are considering the will you share with God. This is not the same as the ego's idle wishes, out of which darkness and nothingness arise.
The will you share with God has all the power of creation in it. The ego's idle wishes are unshared, and therefore have no power at all.
The ego's wishes are not idle in the sense that they can make a world of illusions in which your belief can be very strong. But they are idle indeed in terms of creation. They make nothing that is real.
The body is not real. Furthermore, it is not your will...the will you share with God.
Grievances darken your mind, and you look upon a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light.
As you traffic in grievances, your will seems to be lost in a world gone wild. Can such a world have been created by the Will the Son of God shares with his Father? Did God create disaster for His Son? Would God create a world that kills Himself?
Creation is the Will of Both together. Since this world is neither your will or our Father's it must not be creation. It must be a mistake.
There is another world to see. It is not Heaven, but the light of Heaven shines on it. The light is in it because it does not oppose the Will of God. The ego's idle wishes have been withdrawn. The light that shines upon this like-Heaven world reflects your will, so it must be in you. So that must be where to look.
Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. A barrier of grievances stands between you and the light within you.
The barrier of grievances is easily passed, and cannot stand between you and your salvation. The reason is very simple. Do you really want to be in hell? Do you really want to suffer and die?
Forget the ego's arguments which seek to prove all this is really Heaven - that America is God's promised land. You know it is not so. You cannot want this for yourself.
There is a point beyond which illusions cannot go. Suffering is not happiness, and it is happiness you really want. Such is your will in truth. And so salvation is your will as well.
You will succeed today if you remember that salvation is for yourself - not a preferred country within an illusionary world.
Salvation is for you. Above all else, you want the freedom to remember Who you really are. Today, let the ego stand powerless before your will. Your will is free, and nothing can prevail against it.
Today, let your will be done, and end forever the insane belief that it is hell in place of Heaven that you choose. God's plan for salvation is wholly in accord with your will. It is not the purpose of an alien power, thrust upon you unwillingly.
There is a time appointed for the release of the Son of God from hell and from idle wishes. For you, this time can be today. Be willing to look upon the light within you and be saved.
As you look within, determine to keep your will clearly in mind, and tell yourself with gentle firmness and quiet certainty:
I will there be light. Let me behold the light that reflects God's Will and mine.
Then let your will assert itself, joined with the power of God and united with your Self.
Jesus
