A Course in Miracles

Chapter 10 - God and the Ego

From Darkness to Light

When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but you cannot. You do not know how, for if you did you could never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in any way, for that is not God’s Will for His Son. Pain is not of Him, for He knows no attack and His peace surrounds you silently. God is very quiet, for there is no conflict in Him. Conflict is the root of all evil, for being blind it does not see whom it attacks; yet it always attacks the Son of God, and the Son of God is you.

God’s Son is indeed in need of comfort, for he knows not what he does, believing his will is not his own. The Kingdom is his, and yet he wanders homelessly. At home in God he is lonely, and amid all his brothers he is friendless. Would God let this be real if He did not will to be alone Himself? And if your will is His, it cannot be true of you, because it is not true of Him.

Oh, my children, if you knew what God wills for you, your joy would be complete! And what He wills has happened, for it was always true.

When the light comes and you have said,

“God’s Will is mine,”

you will see such beauty that you will know it is not of you. Out of your joy you will create beauty in His Name, for your joy could no more be contained than His. The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the Presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. Yet I can tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Himself He wills for you, and what He wills for you is yours.

The way is not hard, but it is very different. Yours is the way of pain, of which God knows nothing. That way is hard indeed, and very lonely. Fear and grief are your guests, and they go with you and abide with you on the way. But the dark journey is not the way of God’s Son. Walk in light and do not see the dark companions, for they are not fit companions for the Son of God, who was created of Light and in Light.

The Great Light always surrounds you and shines out from you. How can you see the dark companions in a Light such as this? If you see them, it is only because you are denying the Light. But deny them instead, for the Light is here and the way is clear.

God hides nothing from His Son, even though His Son would hide himself. Yet the Son of God cannot hide his glory, for God wills him to be glorious, and gave him the Light that shines in him. You will never lose your way for God leads you. When you wander you but undertake a journey which is not real. The dark companions, the dark way, are all illusions. Turn toward the Light, for the little spark in you is part of a Light so great that It can sweep you out of all darkness forever, for your Father is your Creator, and you are like Him.

The Children of Light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is not in them. Do not be deceived by the dark comforters, and never let them enter the mind of God’s Son, for they have no place in His temple. When you are tempted to deny Him, remember that there are no other gods that you can place before Him, and accept His Will for you in peace, for you cannot accept it otherwise.

Only God’s Comforter can comfort you. In the quiet of His temple, He waits to give you the peace that is yours. Give His peace that you may enter the temple and find it waiting for you. But be holy in the Presence of God, or you will not know that you are there, for what is unlike God, cannot enter His Mind, because it was not His Thought, and therefore does not belong to Him; and your minds must be as pure as His, if you would know what belongs to you. Guard carefully His temple, for He Himself dwells there, and abides in peace. You cannot enter God’s Presence with the dark companions beside you, but you also cannot enter alone.

All your brothers must enter with you. For until you have accepted them, you cannot enter, for you cannot understand Wholeness unless you are whole, and no part of the Son can be excluded if he would know the Wholeness of his Father. In your mind you can accept the whole Sonship, and bless it with the Light your Father gave it. Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple with Him, because it is your will not to be alone.

God blessed His Son forever. If you will bless him in time, you will be in eternity. Time cannot separate you from God, if you use it on behalf of the eternal.

A Course in Miracles

Chapter 10 - God and the Ego

Inheritance of God's Son

Never forget that the Sonship is your salvation for the Sonship is your Soul. As God’s creation it is yours, and belonging to you, it is His. Your Soul does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation (happiness) is. You are not saved from anything, but you are saved for glory. Glory is your inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator that you might extend it. Yet if you hate part of your own Soul, all your understanding is lost, because you are looking on what God created as yourself without love, and since what He created is part of Him, you are denying Him His place in His own altar.

Could you try to make God homeless and know that you are at home? Can the Son deny the Father without believing that the Father has denied him?

God’s laws hold only for your protection, and they never hold in vain. What you experience when you deny your Father is still for your protection, for the power of your will cannot be lessened without the intervention of God against it, and any limitation on your power is not the Will of God. Therefore, look only to the power that God gave to save you, remembering that it is yours because it is His, and join with your brothers in His peace.

The peace of your Soul lies in its limitlessness.

Limit the peace you share, and your own Soul must be unknown to you. Every altar to God is part of your Soul, because the Light He created is One with Him. Would you cut off a brother from the Light that is yours? You would not do so if you realized that you can only darken your own mind. As you bring him back, so will your mind return. That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of His Son.

Only you can deprive yourself of anything.

Do not oppose this realization, for it is truly the beginning of the dawn of light. Remember also that the denial of this simple fact takes many forms, and these you must learn to recognize, and to oppose steadfastly, and without exception.

This is a crucial step in the re-awakening. The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite painful, for as blame is withdrawn from without there is a strong tendency to harbor it within. It is difficult, at first, to realize that this is exactly the same thing, for there is no distinction between within and without.

If your brothers are part of you and you blame them for your deprivation, you areblaming yourself, and you cannot blame yourself without blaming them. That is why blame must be undone, not re-allocated. Lay it to yourself, and you cannot know yourself, for only the ego blames at all. Self-blame is therefore ego identification, and as strong an ego defense as blaming others. You cannot enter God's Presence if you attack His Son. When His Son lifts his voice in praise of his Creator, he will hear the Voice of his Father. Yet the Creator cannot be praised without His Son, for their glory is shared, and they are glorified together.

Christ is at God’s altar, waiting to welcome His Son. But come wholly without condemnation, for otherwise you will believe that the door is barred and you cannot enter. The door is not barred. And it is impossible for you to be unable to enter the place where God would have you be. But love yourself with the Love of Christ, for so does your Father love you. You can refuse to enter, but you cannot bar the door which Christ holds open.

Come unto me who holds it open for you, for while I live it cannot be shut, and I live forever. God is my life and yours, and nothing is denied by God to His Son.

At God’s altar Christ waits for the restoration of Himself in you. God knows His Son as wholly blameless as Himself. And He is approached through the appreciation of His Son. Christ waits for your acceptance of Him as yourself, and of His Wholeness as yours, for Christ is the Son of God who lives in his Creator and shines with His glory. Christ is the extension of the Love and the Loveliness of God, as perfect as his Creator, and at peace with Him.

Blessed is the Son of God, whose radiance is of his Father, and whose glory he wills to share as his Father shares it with him. There is no condemnation in the Son for there is no condemnation in the Father. Sharing the perfect Love of the Father, the Son must share what belongs to Him, for otherwise he will not know the Father or the Son. Peace be unto you who rest in God, and in whom the whole Sonship rests.