Lesson 138

Heaven is the decision I must make.

Heaven is the decision I must make. I make it now, and will not change my mind, because it is the only thing I want.

You think a thousand choices are confronting you, when there is really only one to make. You make but one. And when that one is made, you will perceive it was no choice at all. Truth is true, and nothing else is. There is no opposite to choose. There is no contradiction to the truth.

Lesson 137

When I am healed I am not healed alone.

When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would share my healing with the world, that sickness may be banished from the mind of God's one Son, Who is my only Self. And I would bless my brothers, for I would be healed with them, as they are healed with me.

Healing is freedom. Let our minds be healed, that we may carry healing to the world, exchanging curse for blessing, pain for joy, and separation for the peace of God. Those who are healed become the instruments of healing.

Let healing be through you today. And as you rest in quiet, be prepared to give as you receive, to hold but what you give, and to receive the Word of God to take the place of all the foolish thoughts that ever were imagined. We come together to make well all that was sick, and offer blessing where there was attack.

Lesson 136

Sickness is a defense against the truth.

Sickness is a defense against the truth. I will accept the truth of what I am, and let my mind be wholly healed today.

Sickness is not an accident. It is a form of defense, a device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself.

Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. And afterwards, your plan requires that you must forget you made it. Defenses make facts unrecognizable.

Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you. It is a choice you make. The sickness of the body convinces you that you are separate from the truth. This makes the body stronger than the truth, more powerful than everlasting life.

God knows not of your plans to change His Will. The universe remains unheeding of the laws by which you thought to govern it. And Heaven has not bowed to hell, nor life to death. Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. Truth wants to give you happiness, that is its purpose. It may sigh a little when you throw away its gifts, and yet it knows, with certainty, that what God wills for you must be received.

Ask that the truth come to you and set you free, and truth will come, for it never has been apart from us. It merely waits for the invitation. Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. Your mind will be healed of all sickness that it tried to authorize the body to obey.

Now is the body healed, because the source of sickness has been opened to relief.

I have forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my body for myself. Sickness is a defense against the truth. But I am not a body. And my mind cannot attack. So I cannot be sick.

Lesson 135

If I defend myself I am attacked.

If I defend myself I am attacked. But in defenselessness I will be strong, and I will learn what my defenses hide. This is my Eastertime. And I would keep it holy. I will not defend myself, because the Son of God needs no defense against the truth of his reality.

Defense gives illusion full reality, and then attempts to handle them as real. It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult. And it is this you do when you attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or organize the present as you wish.

You operate from the belief you must protect yourself from what is happening because it must contain what threatens you. The world is based on the insane belief that there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense.

Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. You think it offers safety. yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified. Is it not strange you do not pause to ask, as you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks more tight, what you defend, and how, and against what?

Let's consider what you defend. It must be something that is very weak and easily assaulted. It must be something made easy prey, unable to protect itself and needing your defense. What but the body has such frailty that constant care and watchful, deep concern are needful to protect its little life? What but the body falters and must fail to serve the Son of God as worthy host?

Yet it is not the body that can fear, nor be a thing of fear. It has no needs but those which you assign to it. It needs no complicated structures of defense, no health-inducing medicine, no care and no concern at all. Defend its life, or give it gifts to make it beautiful or walls to make it safe, and you but say your home is open to the thief of time, corruptible and crumbling, so unsafe it must be guarded with your very life.

It is your mind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it, and set its value far beyond a little pile of dust and water. Who would make defense of something that he recognized as this?

The body is in need of no defense. It will be strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill, to purposes beyond its scope, and to exalted aims which it cannot accomplish. Such attempts, ridiculous yet deeply cherished, are the sources for the many mad attacks you make upon it. For it seems to fail your hopes, your needs, your values and your dreams.

The "self" that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?

Defend the body and you have attacked your mind. Identify with the body and impose all the pain that comes from the conception of the mind as limited and fragile, and apart from other minds and separate from its Source.

These are the thoughts in need of healing, and the body will respond with health when they have been corrected and replaced with truth. This is the body's only real defense. If you cherish the body, you take away the hope of healing, for you fail to see where hope must lie, in the mind. Healthy mind, healthy body. That is the universal law. Go against this, and sickness will follow.

A healed mind does not plan. It carries out the plans that it receives through listening to wisdom that is not its own. It waits until it has been taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it. it does not depend upon itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill the plans assigned to it.

All your defenses have been aimed at not receiving what you will receive today. And in the light and joy of simple trust, you will but wonder why you ever thought that you must be defended from release. Heaven asks nothing. It is hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice. You give up nothing in these times today when, undefended, you represent yourself to your Creator as you really are.

He has remembered you. Today we will remember Him. For this is Eastertime in your salvation. And you rise again from what was seeming death and hopelessness. Now is the light of hope reborn in you, for now you come without defense, to learn the part for you within the plan of God.

Learn today.

LESSON 134

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
Forgiveness is not an unfair sacrifice or righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth.
Forgiveness is irrelevant to everything except illusions. What you are forgiving is the illusion, and forgiving yourself for believing the illusion as truth. The problem is that you find it difficult to arrive at genuine forgiveness because you still believe you must forgive the truth, and not illusions. You believe that forgiveness is a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth.

Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception. If sins are real and you forgive them, that's like saying the corrupt are blameless as grass and as white as snow. Forgiveness is delusional. It would see the loathsome as good. Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are mocked and twice condemned; first, by themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who pardon them.

It is sin's unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely.

Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies, but it is not deceived. it does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth."

The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies; the great restorer of the simple truth. By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which has been blocked by dreams of guilt. Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you. For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself.

Their is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, "Would I accuse myself of doing this?"

Lies condemn. In truth is innocence, the only thing there is. Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth; between the world you see and that which lies beyond; between the hell of guilt and Heaven's gate.

Forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its benefits. Forgiveness is alien to this world.

Without delay, we practice true forgiveness today. We no longer delay freedom and peace.

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is. Would I accuse myself of doing this? I will not lay this chain upon myself. No one is crucified alone; and yet no one can enter Heaven by himself.

LESSON 133

I will not value what is valueless.
You do not ask too much of life, but far too little. When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. If you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is valueless. What fades and dies was never there, and makes no offering to him who chooses it. Furthermore, if you seek to take away from another, you take away from yourself. Who seeks to take away has been deceived by the illusion loss can offer gain. Loss must offer loss, and nothing more.

Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own.

I will not value what is valueless, and only what has value do I seek, for only that do I desire to find, for what is valuable belongs to me.

To put it succinctly, if you value something that won't last forever, you're screwed! - Philip Urso
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LESSON 132

I loose the world from all I thought it was.

I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality. I loose the world from all I thought it was, and choose my own reality instead.

What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? And what can save the world but your Self? Belief is powerful indeed. Anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it. Free the past from what you thought before; free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find; the present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the world set free. As you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thoughts of death within your mind. We who are as He created us would loose the world this day from every one of our illusions, that we may be free.

Lesson 131

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

Today I seek and find all that I want.
My single purpose offers it to me.
No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

"You dwell not here, but in eternity. You travel but in dreams, while safe at home" (T-13. VII.17:6)

LESSON 130

It is impossible to see two worlds.
What you see reflects your thinking. Your thinking reflects what you want to see. What you value you must want to see.

What then, can fear project upon the world? Truth is eclipsed by fear, and what remains is imagined.

Fear has made everything you think you see. All separation, all distinctions, all differences you believe make up the world. They are not there. Love's enemy has made them up. Yet love has no enemy, no opposite.

It is impossible to see two worlds. Let me accept the strength God offers me and see no value in this world, that I may find my freedom and deliverance.

LESSON 129

Beyond this world there is a world I want.
Following up from Lesson 128, you cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless. If there is nothing else to hope for, you will only be depressed! Our emphasis is not to give up on the world, but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy and capable of offering you peace.

Think about the value you hold for this world. There is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. The world you see is merciless, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end.

Find a world where losing is impossible; where love endures forever, hate cannot exist and vengeance has no meaning. Find all things you really want, and know they have no ending and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time. A world where language ceases into silence and yet all is understood.

God and His Son's language has no words. What they say cannot be symbolized. Their knowledge is direct and wholly shared and wholly one. How far away from this are you who stay bound to this world. And yet how near are you, when you exchange it for the world you want.

The last step is certain; you stand an instant's space away from timelessness. Unbind your mind from little things the world sets forth to keep you prisoner. Do not value them, and they will disappear. Esteem them, and they will seem real to you. This world holds nothing you really want.

Beyond this world there is a world I want. I choose to see that world instead of this, for here is nothing that I really want.

The lights of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your face as you rest beyond the world of darkness. A day of grace is given you today, and we give thanks. We realize that what you feared to lose was only loss.

Now you understand there is no loss. For you have seen its opposite at last, and are grateful.

LESSON 128

The world I see holds nothing that I want.
Be you deceived no more. The world you see holds nothing that you want. All things you seek to make your value greater in your sight limit you further, hide your worth from you, and add another bar across the door that leads to true awareness of your Self.
Let nothing that relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation. Certainty of worth cannot be found in worthlessness.

Let go all thought of values we have given to the world. We hold it purposeless within our minds.

Pause and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world, when you release your mind from chains and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. It will be grateful to be free a while. It knows where it belongs. But free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love.

Your whole perspective on the world will shift by just a little, every time you let your mind escape its chains. Open your mind to Him. Be still and rest.

This will not tempt me to delay myself.
The world I see holds nothing that I want.

LESSON 127

There is no love but God's.
Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son. Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Love is a law without an opposite. There can never be a difference in what you really are and what love is. Love's meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is. There is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well. If you achieve the faintest glimmering of what love means, you have advanced in distance without measure and in time beyond the count of years to your release.

Escape from every law in which you now believe. Open your mind and rest. The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear. Withdraw all value you have placed upon its meager offerings and senseless gifts, and let the gift of God replace them all.

I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would share with you. For I would learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God's and yours and mine and everyone's.

Japan Earthquake

Friends and loved ones affected by the earthquake, love and prayers, love and prayers, love and prayers. ♥

I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would share with you. For I would learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God's and yours and mine and everyone's.

LESSON 126

All that I give is given to myself.
Today's idea, alien to the ego and to the world, is crucial to the thought reversal that this course will bring about. It seems to you that other people are apart from you, and able to behave in ways that do not affect your thoughts, nor yours on theirs. You think that they can sin without affecting your perception of yourself, while you can judge their sin, and yet remain apart from condemnation and at peace.

"When we realize that we are sinners needing forgiveness, it will be very easy for us to forgive others. If I do not understand this, it will be very hard for me to say 'I forgive you' to anyone who comes to me. It is not necessary to be a Christian in order to forgive. Every human being comes from God's hand, and we all know how much God loves us. No matter what our belief is, we have to learn how to forgive if we really want to love." – Mother Teresa.

Today we understand the truth that giver and receiver are the same. Give Him your faith today, and ask Him that He share your practicing in truth today. If you catch a tiny glimpse of the release that lies in the idea we practice for today, this is a day of glory for the world. Be willing to be taught. Hear the Voice of truth and heal.

All that I give is given to myself. The Help I need to learn that this is true is with me now. And I will trust in Him.

LESSON 125

In quiet I receive God's Word today.
Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father wills you hear His Word today. No peace is possible until His Word is heard around the world; until your mind, in quiet listening, accepts the message that the world must hear to usher in the quiet time of peace.

In stillness we will hear God's Voice today without intrusion of our petty thoughts, personal desires, and all judgment of His holy Word. We stand apart from all the judgments the world has laid upon the Son of God. It knows him not. We will not listen to the world, but wait in silence for the Word of God.

He has not waited or hid Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him. He does not cherish the illusions you have made about yourself. He knows His Son, and wills that he remain as part of Him regardless of his dreams; regardless of his madness that his will is not his own.

Today He speaks to you. His Word cannot be heard until your mind is quiet for awhile. There is peace within you to be called upon today, to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice for its Creator speak. Love is everything you are and that He is; the same as you, and you the same as He.

Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this, to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body's eyes. Only be still and listen. You will hear the Word in which the Will of God the Son joins in his Father's Will, at one with it, with no illusions interposed between the wholly indivisible and true. As every hour passes by today, be still a moment and remind yourself you have a special purose for this day; in quiet to receive the Word of God.

LESSON 124

Let me remember I am one with God.
In perfect safety, power and strength in all that we do, we cannot fail. God Himself goes everywhere with us. God, Who loves us smiles on us and offers us the happiness we gave. Today we see only the loving and the lovable. We see it in the suffering, the lonely and afraid, who are restored to peace of mind in which they were created. We see it in the dying and the dead, restoring them to life. All this we see because we saw it first within ourselves.

We are one with God, saved and healed, saving and healing others. We have accepted, and we now would give.

Peace be to you today. you are one with God, as He is with you. Trust God's Voice to speak as he sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Your benefit will not be less if you believe that nothing happens. You may not be ready to accept the gain today. Yet sometime, somewhere, it will come to you, nor will you fail to recognize it when it dawns with certainty upon your mind.

Let me remember I am one with God, at one with all my brothers and my Self, in everlasting holiness and peace.

LESSON 123

I thank my Father for His gifts to me.

Be glad today, in loving thankfulness, your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone. Be grateful he has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation. Give Him thanks today.

Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair, and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness today, in honor of the Self that God has willed to be our true Identity in Him. Today we smile on everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is appointed us to do.

We do not go alone. And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend has come to speak the saving Word of God to us. And thanks to you for listening to Him.

Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messenger who brings His Voice with you, and lets it echo round and round the world. receive the thanks of God today, as you give thanks to Him.

Remember to think of Him, and give Him thanks for everything He gave His Son, that he might rise above the world, remembering his Father and his Self.

LESSON 122

Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Forgiveness offers everything I want. Today I have accepted this as true. Today I have received the gifts of God.

LESSON 121

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

Here is the answer to your search for peace, all questions answered, the end of all uncertainty ensured at last. The unforgiving mind is full of fear, torn with doubt, sees only sins, is in despair, without the prospect of a future which can offer anything but more despair. Forgiveness is acquired, not inherent in the mind. As sin is an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you. Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own how to forgive itself. Each one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. It has no hope, but you become its hope. And as its hope, do you become your own. The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you.

Think of someone you do not like, who seems to irritate you, or to cause regret in you if you should meet him; one you actively despise, or merely try to overlook. It does not matter what the form your anger takes. You probably have chosen him already. He will do. See him in your mind, and look at him a while. Try to perceive some light in him somewhere; a little gleam which you had never noticed. Try to find some little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture that you hold of him. Look at this picture till you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to let this light extend until it covers him, and makes the picture beautiful and good. Look at him for a while in this light, and turn your mind to one you call a friend. Transfer the light you learned to see around your former "enemy" to him. Perceive him now as more than a friend to you, for in that light his holiness shows you your savior, saved and saving, healed and whole. Let him offer you the light you see in him, and let your "enemy" and friend unite in blessing you with what you gave. Now are you one with them, and they with you. Now have you been forgiven by yourself.

Forgiveness is the key to happiness. I will awaken from the dream that I am mortal, fallible and full of sin, and know I am the perfect Son of God.

Addendum from ELENA

(L 121: 2:1)The unforgiving min is full of fear and offers love no room to be itself…

“You see yourself as vulnerable, frail and easily destroyed, and at the mercy of countless attackers more powerful than you.” (T-22.VI.10.6)

(L 121: 4:1)The unforgiving mind sees no mistakes, but only sins.It looks upon the world with sightless eyes and shrieks as it beholds its own projections risking to attack its miserable parody of life.It wants to live, yet wishes it were dead.It wants forgiveness, yet it sees no hope.....

“The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes to the role of enemy and of attacker, still this is the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in the a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream. “(T-27.VIII.10).

LESSON 120

1. (109) I rest in God.

I rest in God today, and let Him work in me and through me, while I rest in Him in quiet and in perfect certainty.

2. (110) I am as God created me.

I am God's Son. Today I lay aside all sick illusions of myself, and let my Father tell me Who I really am.

Lesson 119

1. (107) Truth will correct all errors in my mind.

I am mistaken when I think I can hurt in any way. I am God's Son, whose Self rests safely in the Mind of God.

2. (108) To give and to receive are one in truth.

I will forgive all things today, that I may learn how to accept the truth in me, and come to recognize my sinlessness.