BLOCKAGES
KEYS – T28f/33=TEXT pages 28&29 in 1st edition – page 33 in 2nd edition. W=Workbook. M=Teachers Manual. SOP=A Song of Prayer. PPP=Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice.
It should be emphasized again that the body does not learn
any more than it creates. As a learning device it merely follows the learner,
but if it is falsely endowed with self‑initiative, it becomes a serious
obstruction to the very learning it should facilitate. T22/26
I cannot unite your will with God's for you, but I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. Only your misperceptions stand in your way. Without them your choice is certain. T39/43
You still believe you are an image of your own making. Your
mind is split with the Holy Spirit on this point, and there is no resolution
while you believe the one thing that is literally inconceivable. T45/50
It cannot be emphasized too often that correcting perception is
merely a temporary expedient. It is necessary only because misperception is a
block to knowledge, while accurate perception is a stepping‑stone towards it.
T54/59
It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you
ever had that opposes knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of fear
that prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate through the
walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have
made. T56/61
Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot
oppose.s11 Therefore you can obstruct it, although you can never lose it.
T68/74
If you want something else you will make something else, but
because it is something else, it will attack your thought system and divide your
allegiance. You cannot create in this divided state, and you must be vigilant
against this divided state because only peace can be extended. Your divided mind
is blocking the extension of the Kingdom, and its extension is your joy. If you
do not extend the Kingdom, you are not thinking with your Creator and creating
as He created. T117/126
Only one Teacher knows what your reality is. If learning to
remove the obstacles to that knowledge is the purpose of the curriculum, you
must learn it of Him. T129/139
To fulfill the Will of God perfectly is the only joy and peace
that can be fully known, because it is the only function that can be fully
experienced. When this is accomplished, then, there is no other experience. Yet
the wish for other experience will block its accomplishment, because God's Will
cannot be forced upon you, being an experience of total willingness. T131/141f
The ego's whole thought system blocks extension, and thus
blocks your only function. It therefore blocks your joy, so that you perceive
yourself as unfulfilled. T123/143
Reality cannot break through the obstructions you interpose,
but it will envelop you completely when you let them go. T174f/188
The light in them shines as brightly regardless of the density
of the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to obscure the
light, it has none. For it has power only if the Son of God gives power to it.
He must himself withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God. You
can remember this for all the Sonship. T203/218
You cannot lay aside the obstacles to real vision without
looking upon them, for to lay aside means to judge against. T204/220
Peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Father can be
remembered only in peace. Love and guilt cannot coexist, and to accept one is to
deny the other. Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the
blamelessness of God's Son. T221/237
You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your
hatred and realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy
enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need
for you to raise it to awareness yourself. Yet there is one more obstacle you
have interposed between yourself and the Atonement. We have said that no one
will countenance fear if he recognizes it. Yet in your disordered state of mind
you are not afraid of fear. You do not like it, but it is not your desire to
attack that really frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your
hostility. You keep it hidden because you are more afraid of what it covers. You
could look even upon the ego's darkest cornerstone without fear if you did not
believe that, without the ego, you would find within yourself something you fear
even more. You are not really afraid of crucifixion. Your real terror is of
redemption. T225/242
The guiltless learner learns easily because his thoughts are
free. Yet this entails the recognition that guilt is interference, not
salvation, and serves no useful function at all. T255/274
The ego wishes no one well. Yet its survival depends on your
belief that you are exempt from its evil intentions. It counsels, therefore,
that if you are host to it, it will enable you to direct its anger outward, thus
protecting you. And thus it embarks on an endless, unrewarding chain of special
relationships, forged out of anger and dedicated to but one insane belief; that
the more anger you invest outside yourself, the safer you become.
It is this chain that binds the Son of God to guilt, and it is this chain the Holy Spirit would remove from his holy mind. For the chain of savagery belongs not around the chosen host of God, who cannot make himself host to the ego. T295/317f
Our task is but to continue, as fast as possible, the necessary
process of looking straight at all the interference and seeing it exactly as it
is. For it is impossible to recognize as wholly without gratification what you
think you want. The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of
the separation. And both are nothing more than attempts to limit communication,
and thereby to make it impossible. T300/322
When the body ceases to attract you, and when you place no
value on it as a means of getting anything, then there will be no interference
in communication and your thoughts will be as free as God's. T301/324
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find
all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not
necessary to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek
for what is false. T315/338
Very simply, your lack of faith in the power that heals all
pain arises from your wish to retain some aspects of reality for fantasy. If you
but realized what this must do to your appreciation of the whole! What you
reserve for yourself, you take away from Him Who would release you. Unless you
give it back, it is inevitable that your perspective on reality be warped and
uncorrected. T327/351
Reserve not one idea aside from truth, or you establish orders
of reality that must imprison you. T328/352
You do not recognize that love has come, because you have not
yet let go of all the barriers you hold against your brother. T366/393
Love is not learned. Its meaning lies within itself. And
learning ends when you have recognized all it is not. That is the
interference; that is what needs to be undone. T369/396
As peace extends from deep inside yourself to embrace all the
Sonship and give it rest, it will encounter many obstacles. Some of them you
will try to impose. Others will seem to arise from elsewhere; from your
brothers, and from various aspects of the world outside. Yet peace will gently
cover them, extending past completely unencumbered. The extension of the Holy
Spirit's purpose from your relationship to others, to bring them gently in, is
the way in which He will bring means and goal in line. The peace He lay, deep
within you and your brother, will quietly extend to every aspect of your life,
surrounding you and your brother with glowing happiness and the calm awareness
of complete protection. And you will carry its message of love and safety and
freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto your temple, where healing waits for
him. You will not wait to give him this, for you will call to him and he will
answer you, recognizing in your call the Call for God. And you will draw him in
and give him rest, as it was given you.
All this will you do. Yet the peace that already lies deeply within must first expand, and flow across the obstacles you placed before it. This will you do, for nothing undertaken with the Holy Spirit remains unfinished. You can indeed be sure of nothing you see outside you, but of this you can be sure: The Holy Spirit asks that you offer Him a resting place where you will rest in Him. He answered you, and entered your relationship. Would you not now return His graciousness, and enter into a relationship with Him? For it is He who offered your relationship the gift of holiness, without which it would have been forever impossible to appreciate your brother.
The gratitude you owe to Him He asks but that you receive for Him. And when you look with gentle graciousness upon your brother, you are beholding Him. For you are looking where He is, and not apart from Him. You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see your brothers truly. And the light in them will show you all that you need to see. When the peace in you has been extended to encompass everyone, the Holy Spirit's function here will be accomplished. What need is there for seeing, then? When God has taken the last step Himself, the Holy Spirit will gather all the thanks and gratitude that you have offered Him, and lay them gently before His Creator in the name of His most holy Son. And the Father will accept them in His Name. What need is there of seeing, in the presence of His gratitude?
A. The First Obstacle: The Desire to Get Rid of It.
The first obstacle that peace must flow across is your desire to get rid of it. For it cannot extend unless you keep it. You are the center from which it radiates outward, to call the others in. You are its home; its tranquil dwelling place from which it gently reaches out, but never leaving you. If you would make it homeless, how can it abide within the Son of God? If it would spread across the whole creation, it must begin with you, and from you reach to everyone who calls, and bring him rest by joining you.
Why would you want peace homeless? What do you think that it must dispossess to dwell with you? What seems to be the cost you are so unwilling to pay? The little barrier of sand still stands between you and your brother. Would you reinforce it now? You are not asked to let it go for yourself alone. Christ asks it of you for Himself. He would bring peace to everyone, and how can He do this except through you? Would you let a little bank of sand, a wall of dust, a tiny seeming barrier, stand between your brothers and salvation? And yet, this little remnant of attack you cherish still against your brother is the first obstacle the peace in you encounters in its going forth. This little wall of hatred would still oppose the Will of God, and keep it limited.
The Holy Spirit's purpose rests in peace within you. Yet you are still unwilling to let it join you wholly. You still oppose the Will of God, just by a little. And that little is a limit you would place upon the whole. God's Will is one, not many. It has no opposition, for there is none beside it. What you would still contain behind your little barrier and keep separate from your brother seems mightier than the universe, for it would hold back the universe and its Creator. This little wall would hide the purpose of Heaven, and keep it from Heaven.
Would you thrust salvation away from the giver of salvation? For such have you become. Peace could no more depart from you than from God. Fear not this little obstacle. It cannot contain the Will of God. Peace will flow across it, and join you without hindrance. Salvation cannot be withheld from you. It is your purpose. You cannot choose apart from this. You have no purpose apart from your brother, nor apart from the one you asked the Holy Spirit to share with you. The little wall will fall away so quietly beneath the wings of peace. For peace will send its messengers from you to all the world, and barriers will fall away before their coming as easily as those that you interpose will be surmounted.
To overcome the world is no more difficult than to surmount your little wall. For in the miracle of your holy relationship, without this barrier, is every miracle contained. There is no order of difficulty in miracles, for they are all the same. Each is a gentle winning over from the appeal of guilt to the appeal of love. How can this fail to be accomplished, wherever it is undertaken? Guilt can raise no real barriers against it. And all that seems to stand between you and your brother must fall away because of the appeal you answered. From you who answered, He Who answered you would call. His home is in your holy relationship. Do not attempt to stand between Him and His holy purpose, for it is yours. But let Him quietly extend the miracle of your relationship to everyone contained in it as it was given.
There is a hush in Heaven, a happy expectancy, a little pause of gladness in acknowledgment of the journey's end. For Heaven knows you well, as you know Heaven. No illusions stand between you and your brother now. Look not upon the little wall of shadows. The sun has risen over it. How can a shadow keep you from the sun? No more can you be kept by shadows from the light in which illusions end. Every miracle is but the end of an illusion. Such was the journey; such its ending. And in the goal of truth which you accepted must all illusions end.
The little insane wish to get rid of Him Whom you invited in and push Him out must produce conflict. As you look upon the world, this little wish, uprooted and floating aimlessly, can land and settle briefly upon anything, for it has no purpose now. Before the Holy Spirit entered to abide with you it seemed to have a mighty purpose; the fixed and unchangeable dedication to sin and its results. Now it is aimless, wandering pointlessly, causing no more than tiny interruptions in love's appeal.
This feather of a wish, this tiny illusion, this microscopic remnant of the belief in sin, is all that remains of what once seemed to be the world. It is no longer an unrelenting barrier to peace. Its pointless wandering makes its results appear to be more erratic and unpredictable than before. Yet what could be more unstable than a tightly organized delusional system? Its seeming stability is its pervasive weakness, which extends to everything. The variability the little remnant induces merely indicates its limited results. T379ff/406fff
We said that peace must first surmount the obstacle of your
desire to get rid of it. Where the attraction of guilt holds sway, peace is not
wanted. The second obstacle that peace must flow across, and closely related to
the first, is the belief that the body is valuable for what it offers. For here
is the attraction of guilt made manifest in the body, and seen in it.
This is the value that you think peace would rob you of. This is what you believe that it would dispossess, and leave you homeless. And it is this for which you would deny a home to peace. This "sacrifice" you feel to be too great to make, too much to ask of you. Is it a sacrifice, or a release? What has the body really given you that justifies your strange belief that in it lies salvation? Do you not see that this is the belief in death? Here is the focus of the perception of Atonement as murder. Here is the source of the idea that love is fear. T384/412
Peace is extended from you only to the eternal, and it reaches
out from the eternal in you. It flows across all else. The second obstacle is no
more solid than the first. For you want neither to get rid of peace nor limit
it. What are these obstacles that you would interpose between peace and its
going forth but barriers you place between your will and its accomplishment? You
want communion, not the feast of fear. You want salvation, not the pain of
guilt. And you want your Father, not a little mound of clay, to be your home. In
your holy relationship is your Father's Son. He has not lost communion with Him,
nor with himself. When you agreed to join your brother, you acknowledged this is
so. T384f/413
There is no obstacle that you can place before our union, for
in your holy relationship I am there already. We will surmount all obstacles
together, for we stand within the gates and not outside. T385/413
To you and your brother, in whose special relationship the Holy
Spirit entered, it is given to release and be released from the dedication to
death. For it was offered you, and you accepted. Yet you must learn still more
about this strange devotion, for it contains the third obstacle that peace must
flow across. No one can die unless he chooses death. What seems to be the fear
of death is really its attraction. Guilt, too, is feared and fearful. Yet it
could have no hold at all except on those who are attracted to it and seek it
out. And so it is with death. Made by the ego, its dark shadow falls across all
living things, because the ego is the "enemy" of life. T388/416
Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they call
to it, and bid it come to save them from communication. For death is seen as
safety, the great dark savior from the light of truth, the answer to the Answer,
the silencer of the Voice That speaks for God. Yet the retreat to death is not
the end of conflict. Only God's Answer is its end. The obstacle of your seeming
love for death that peace must flow across seems to be very great. For in it lie
hidden all the ego's secrets, all its strange devices for deception, all its
sick ideas and weird imaginings. Here is the final end of union, the triumph of
the ego's making over creation, the victory of lifelessness on Life Itself.
T389f/418
What would you see without the fear of death? What would you
feel and think if death held no attraction for you? Very simply, you would
remember your Father. The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives,
the Father of the universe and of the universe of universes, and of everything
that lies even beyond them would you remember. And as this memory rises in your
mind, peace must still surmount a final obstacle, after which is salvation
completed, and the Son of God entirely restored to sanity. For here your world
does end.
The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to join with Him at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ Himself like to a leper's, and the bright Rays of His Father's Love that light His face with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light beyond it when the fear of death is gone.
This is the darkest veil, upheld by the belief in death and protected by its attraction. The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is but the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego never to lift this veil, not to approach it, nor even to suspect that it is there. This is the secret bargain made with the ego to keep what lies beyond the veil forever blotted out and unremembered. Here is your promise never to allow union to call you out of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of God seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of your Self from you; ‑ the fear of God, the final step in your dissociation.
See how the belief in death would seem to "save" you. For if this were gone, what could you fear but life? It is the attraction of death that makes life seem to be ugly, cruel and tyrannical. You are no more afraid of death than of the ego. These are your chosen friends. For in your secret alliance with them you have agreed never to let the fear of God be lifted, so you could look upon the face of Christ and join Him in His Father.
Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way; the fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, and so the fear is gone. And so it is with this. The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Him. The exaltation of the body is given up in favor of the spirit, which you love as you could never love the body. And the appeal of death is lost forever as love's attraction stirs and calls to you. From beyond each of the obstacles to love, Love Itself has called. And each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies beyond. Your wanting fear seemed to be holding them in place. Yet when you heard the Voice of Love beyond them, you answered and they disappeared.
And now you stand in terror before what you swore never to look upon. Your eyes look down, remembering your promise to your "friends." The "loveliness" of sin, the delicate appeal of guilt, the "holy" waxen image of death, and the fear of vengeance of the ego you swore in blood not to desert, all rise and bid you not to raise your eyes. For you realize that if you look on this and let the veil be lifted, they will be gone forever. All of your "friends," your "protectors" and your "home" will vanish. Nothing that you remember now will you remember.
It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you if you but raise your eyes. Yet all that will occur is you will leave the world forever. This is the re‑establishment of your will. Look upon it, open‑eyed, and you will nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things beyond you, forces you cannot control, and thoughts that come to you against your will. It is your will to look on this. No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear nor the cold sweat of seeming death can stand against your will. For what attracts you from beyond the veil is also deep within you, unseparated from it and completely one. T391f420f
Forget not that you came this far together, you and your
brother. And it was surely not the ego that led you here. No obstacle to peace
can be surmounted through its help. It does not open up its secrets, and bid you
look on them and go beyond them. It would not have you see its weakness, and
learn it has no power to keep you from the truth. The Guide Who brought you here
remains with you, and when you raise your eyes you will be ready to look on
terror with no fear at all. But first, lift up your eyes and look on your
brother in innocence born of complete forgiveness of his illusions, and through
the eyes of faith that sees them not.
No one can look upon the fear of God unterrified, unless he has accepted the Atonement and learned illusions are not real. No one can stand before this obstacle alone, for he could not have reached this far unless his brother walked beside him. And no one would dare to look on it without complete forgiveness of his brother in his heart. Stand you here a while and tremble not. You will be ready. Let us join together in a holy instant, here in this place where the purpose, given in a holy instant, has led you. And let us join in faith that He Who brought us here together will offer you the innocence you need, and that you will accept it for my love and His. T393/421f
The ego is the self‑appointed mediator of all relationships,
making whatever adjustments it deems necessary and interposing them between
those who would meet, to keep them separate and prevent their union. It is this
studied interference that makes it difficult for you to recognize your holy
relationship for what it is. Tt400/429
All that is asked of you is to make room for truth. You are not
asked to make or do what lies beyond your understanding. All you are asked to do
is let it in; only to stop your interference with what will happen
of itself; simply to recognize again the presence of what you thought you gave
away. T419/449
Those who would free their brothers from the body can have no
fear. They have renounced the means for sin by choosing to let all limitations
be removed. As they desire to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of
their belief and faith sees far beyond the body, supporting vision, not
obstructing it. T422/453
Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a
key, across the road to peace. No one who looks on it without the help of reason
would try to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it
would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily,
because it is an error. T442/475
To all who share the Love of God the grace is given to the
givers of what they have received. And so they learn that it is theirs forever.
All barriers disappear before their coming, as every obstacle was finally
surmounted that seemed to rise and block their way before. This veil you and
your brother lift together opens the way to truth to more than you. Those who
would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's saviors, walking
the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and
release from suffering to everyone who needs a miracle to save him. T445/478
Each form of murder and attack that still attracts you and that
you do not recognize for what it is, limits the healing and the miracles you
have the power to extend to all. T462/497
You have come far along the way of truth; too far to
falter now. Just one step more, and every vestige of the fear of God will melt
away in love. Your brother's specialness and yours are enemies,
and bound in hate to kill each other and deny they are the same. Yet it is not
illusions that have reached this final obstacle which seems to make God and His
Heaven so remote that They cannot be reached. Here in this holy place does truth
stand waiting to receive you and your brother in silent blessing, and in peace
so real and so encompassing that nothing stands outside. Leave all illusions of
yourself outside this place, to which you come in hope and honesty.T468/504
Forgiveness takes away what stands between your brother and yourself. It is the wish that you be joined with him, and not apart. We call it "wish" because it still conceives of other choices, and has not yet reached beyond the world of choice entirely. Yet is this wish in line with Heaven's state, and not in opposition to God's Will. Although it falls far short of giving you your full inheritance, it does remove the obstacles that you have placed between the Heaven where you are, and recognition of where and what you are. T516/555
The fear of God! The greatest obstacle that peace must flow
across has not yet gone. The rest are past, but this one still remains to block
your path, and make the way to light seem dark and fearful, perilous and bleak.
You had decided that your brother is your enemy. Sometimes a friend, perhaps,
provided that your separate interests made your friendship possible a little
while. But not without a gap perceived between you and him, lest he turn again
into an enemy. Let him come close to you, and you jumped back; as you
approached, did he but instantly withdraw. A cautious friendship, and limited in
scope and carefully restricted in amount, became the treaty that you had made
with him. Thus you and your brother but shared a qualified entente, in which a
clause of separation was a point you both agreed to keep intact. And violating
this was thought to be a breach of treaty not to be allowed.
The gap between you and your brother is not one of space between two separate bodies. And this but seems to be dividing off your separate minds. It is the symbol of a promise made to meet when you prefer, and separate till you and he elect to meet again. And then your bodies seem to get in touch, and thereby signify a meeting place to join. But always is it possible for you and him to go your separate ways. Conditional upon the "right" to separate will you and he agree to meet from time to time, and keep apart in intervals of separation, which do protect you from the "sacrifice" of love. The body saves you, for it gets away from total sacrifice and gives to you the time in which to build again your separate self, which you truly believe diminishes as you and your brother meet.
The body could not separate your mind from your brother's unless you wanted it to be a cause of separation and of distance seen between you and him. Thus do you endow it with a power that lies not within itself. And herein lies its power over you. For now you think that it determines when your brother and you meet, and limits your ability to make communion with your brother's mind. And now it tells you where to go and how to go there, what is feasible for you to undertake, and what you cannot do. It dictates what its health can tolerate, and what will tire it and make it sick. And its "inherent" weaknesses set up the limitations on what you would do, and keep your purpose limited and weak.
The body will accommodate to this, if you would have it so. It will allow but limited indulgences in "love," with intervals of hatred in between. And it will take command of when to "love," and when to shrink more safely into fear. It will be sick because you do not know what loving means. And so you must misuse each circumstance and everyone you meet, and see in them a purpose not your own.
It is not love that asks a sacrifice. But fear demands the sacrifice of love, for in love's presence fear cannot abide. For hate to be maintained, love must be feared; and only sometimes present, sometimes gone. Thus is love seen as treacherous, because it seems to come and go uncertainly, and offer no stability to you. You do not see how limited and weak is your allegiance, and how frequently you have demanded that love go away, and leave you quietly alone in "peace."
The body, innocent of goals, is your excuse for variable goals you hold, and force the body to maintain. You do not fear its weakness, but its lack of strength or weakness. Would you know that nothing stands between you and your brother? Would you know there is no gap behind which you can hide? There is a shock that comes to those who learn their savior is their enemy no more. There is a wariness that is aroused by learning that the body is not real. And there are overtones of seeming fear around the happy message, "God is Love."
Yet all that happens when the gap is gone is peace eternal. Nothing more than that, and nothing less. Without the fear of God, what could induce you to abandon Him? What toys or trinkets in the gap could serve to hold you back an instant from His Love? Would you allow the body to say "no" to Heaven's calling, were you not afraid to find a loss of self in finding God? Yet can your self be lost by being found? T563ff/606ff
Let us review again what seems to stand between you and the
truth of what you are. For there are steps in its relinquishment. The first is a
decision that you make. But afterwards, the truth is given you. T603/648
Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the
world, and it will serve no other end but this. For everything must serve the
purpose you have given it, until you see a different purpose there. The only
purpose worthy of your mind this world contains is that you pass it by, without
delaying to perceive some hope where there is none. Be you deceived no more. The
world you see holds nothing that you want. W227/233
With love as enemy, must cruelty become a god. And gods demand
that those who worship them obey their dictates, and refuse to question them.
Harsh punishment is meted out relentlessly to those who ask if the demands are
sensible or even sane. It is their enemies who are unreasonable and insane,
while they are always merciful and just.
Today we look upon this cruel god dispassionately. And we note that though his lips are smeared with blood, and fire seems to flame from him, he is but made of stone. He can do nothing. We need not defy his power. He has none. And those who see in him their safety have no guardian, no strength to call upon in danger, and no mighty warrior to fight for them.
This moment can be terrible. But it can also be the time of your release from abject slavery. You make a choice, standing before this idol, seeing him exactly as he is. Will you restore to love what you have sought to wrest from it and lay before this mindless piece of stone? Or will you make another idol to replace it? For the god of cruelty takes many forms. Another can be found.
Yet do not think that fear is the escape from fear. Let us remember what the text has stressed about the obstacles to peace. The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Himself. Here is the basic premise which enthrones the thought of fear as god. For fear is loved by those who worship it, and love appears to be invested now with cruelty. W319/327
Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons,
and direct approaches to the special blocks that keep your vision narrow, and
too limited to let you see the value of our goal. We are attempting now to lift
these blocks, however briefly. Words alone can not convey the sense of
liberation which their lifting brings. But the experience of freedom and of
peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for
itself. Your motivation will be so intensified that words become of little
consequence. You will be sure of what you want, and what is valueless.
And so we start our journey beyond words by concentrating first on what impedes your progress still. Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while it is denied. It may be there, but you cannot accept its presence. So we now attempt to go past all defenses for a little while each day. No more than this is asked, because no more than this is needed. It will be enough to guarantee the rest will come. W328/336
When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by
what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they
are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self That lies beyond
your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours.
Perception has a focus. It is this that gives consistency to what you see. Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly. Your vision now will shift, to give support to the intent which has replaced the one you held before. Remove your focus on your brother's sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. And you will not transcend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond. W329/337
A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past
and future goals. You have been quite preoccupied with how extremely different
the goals this course is advocating are from those you held before. And you have
also been dismayed by the depressing and restricting thought that, even if you
should succeed, you will inevitably lose your way again.
How could this matter? For the past is gone; the future but imagined. These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in perception. Nothing more. We lay these pointless limitations by a little while. We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now. We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within.
We recognize that we have lost this goal if anger blocks our way in any form. And if a brother's sins occur to us, our narrowed focus will restrict our sight, and turn our eyes upon our own mistakes, which we will magnify and call our "sins." So, for a little while, without regard to past or future, should such blocks arise we will transcend them with instructions to our minds to change their focus, as we say: It is not this that I would look upon. I trust my brothers, who are one with me. W329f/337f
We do not seek for long‑range goals. As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain. W330/338
Is it not He Who knows the way to you? You need not know the
way to Him. Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed
between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. God will do
His part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and receive. But do not make
demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. The way to
reach Him is merely to let Him be. For in that way is your reality proclaimed as
well. W350/360
"When not one thought of sin remains" appears to be a
long‑range goal indeed. But time stands still, and waits on the goal of God's
teachers. Not one thought of sin will remain the instant any one of them accepts
Atonement for himself. It is not easier to forgive one sin than to forgive all
of them. The illusion of orders of difficulty is an obstacle the teacher of God
must learn to pass by and leave behind. One sin perfectly forgiven by one
teacher of God can make salvation complete. Can you understand this? No; it is
meaningless to anyone here. Yet it is the final lesson in which unity is
restored. It goes against all the thinking of the world, but so does Heaven.
M35/36
The limits the world places on communication are the chief
barriers to direct experience of the Holy Spirit, Whose Presence is always there
and Whose Voice is available but for the hearing. These limits are placed out of
fear, for without them the walls that surround all the separate places of the
world would fall at the holy sound of His Voice. Who transcends these limits in
any way is merely becoming more natural. He is doing nothing special, and there
is no magic in his accomplishments. M59/62
God indeed can be reached directly, for there is no distance
between Him and His Son. His awareness is in everyone's memory, and His Word is
written on everyone's heart. Yet this awareness and this memory can arise across
the threshold of recognition only where all barriers to truth have been removed.
M61/64
Ask, then, His help, and ask Him how to learn forgiveness as
His vision lets it be. You are in need of what He gives, and your salvation
rests on learning this of Him. Prayer cannot be re- leased to Heaven while
forgiveness‑to‑destroy remains with you. God's mercy would remove this withering
and poisoned thinking from your holy mind. Christ has forgiven you, and in His
sight the world becomes as holy as Himself. Who sees no evil in it sees like
Him. For what He has forgiven has not sinned, and guilt can be no more.
Salvation's plan is made complete, and sanity has come. SOP10/10f
No one who learns to forgive can fail to remember God.
Forgive-ness, then, is all that need be taught, because it is all that need be
learned. All blocks to the remembrance of God are forms of unforgiveness, and
nothing else. This is never apparent to the patient, and only rarely so to the
therapist. The world has marshalled all its forces against this one awareness,
for in it lies the ending of the world and all it stands for. PPP5/6f