Chapter
11 - God's Plan of Salvation
The
Guide for Miracles
Miracles
demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right
guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been
learned can be recognized only by its results. Its generalization
is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations.
You will recognize that you have learned there is no
order of difficulty in miracles when you have applied
them to all situations. There is no situation to which
miracles do not apply, and by applying them to all situations
you will gain the real world. For in this holy perception
you will be made whole, and the Atonement will radiate
from your acceptance of it for yourself to everyone
the Holy Spirit sends you for your blessing. In every
Child of God His blessing lies, and in your blessing
of the Children of God is His blessing to you.
Everyone
in the world must play his part in the redemption of
the world, to recognize that the world has beenredeemed.
You cannot see the invisible. Yet if you see its effects
you know it must be there. By perceiving what it does,
you recognize its being. And by what it does, you learn
what it is. You cannot see your abilities, but you gain
confidence in their existence as they enable you to
act. And the results of your actions you can see.
The
Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results
of His Presence, and through them you will learn that
He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly not
of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality
as this world judges it. Every
law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction
and control is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit
enables you to do is clearly beyond all of them. Perceiving
His results, you will understand where He must be, and
finally know what He is.
You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His
manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize
He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for
his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you
only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you
can be aware of what you cannot see, and it can become
compellingly real to you as its presence becomes manifest
through you. Do the Holy Spirit’s work, for you
share in His function. As your function in Heaven is
creation, so your function on earth is healing. God
shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy
Spirit shares His with you on earth.
As
long as you believe you have two functions, so long
will you need correction. For
this belief is the destruction of peace, a goal in direct
opposition to the Holy Spirit’s purpose. You
see what you expect, and you expect what you invite.
Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming
to you as you sent for it.
Whose
manifestations would you see? Of whose presence would
you be convinced? For you will believe in what you manifest,
and as you look out so will you see in. Two ways of
looking at the world are in your mind, and your perception
will reflect the guidance you chose.
I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and when
you see me it will be because you have invited Him.
For He will send you His witnesses if you will but look
upon them. Remember always that you see what you seek,
for what you seek you will find. The ego finds what
it seeks, and only that. It does not find love, for
that is not what it is seeking. Yet seeking and finding
are the same, and if you seek for two goals you will
find them, but you will recognize neither. For you will
think they are the same because you want them both.
The mind always strives for integration, and if it is
split and wants to keep the split, it will believe it
has one goal by making it one.
We said before that what you project is up to you, but
it is not up to you whether to project, for projection
is a law of mind. Perception is projection, and you
look in before you look out. As you look in you choose
the guide for seeing, and then you look out and behold
his witnesses. This is why you find what you seek. What
you want in yourself you will make manifest by projection,
and you will accept it from the world because you put
it there by wanting it.
When
you think you are projecting what you do not want, it
is still because you do want it. This leads directly
to dissociation, for it represents the acceptance of
two goals, each perceived in a different place, separated
from each other because you made them different. The
mind then sees a divided world outside itself, but not
within. This gives it an illusion of integrity, and
enables it to believe that it is pursuing one goal.
As
long as you perceive the world as split, you are not
healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal because
you have accepted only one, and want but one.
When
you want only love you will see nothing else. The contradictory
nature of the witnesses you perceive is merely the reflection
of your conflicting invitations. You have looked upon
your minds and accepted opposition there, having sought
it there. But do not then believe that the witnesses
for opposition are true, for they attest only to your
decision about reality,
returning to you the message you gave them. Love
is recognized by its messengers. If you make love manifest,
its messengers
will come to you because you invited them.
The
power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a
prisoner of this world. You can decide to see it right.
What you made of it is not its reality, for its reality
is only what you gave it. You cannot really give anything
but love to anyone or anything, nor can you really receive
anything else from them. If you think you have received
anything else, it is because you have looked within
and thought you saw the power to give something else
within yourself. It was only this decision that determined
what you found, for it was the decision of what you
sought.
You
are afraid of me because you looked within and are afraid
of what you saw. Yet you could not have seen reality,
for the reality of your mind is the loveliest of God’s
creations. Coming only from God, its power and grandeur
could only bring you peace if you really looked upon
it. If
you are afraid, it is because you saw something that
is not there. Yet in that same place you could have
looked upon me and all your brothers, in the perfect
safety of the Mind Which created us. For we are there
in the peace of the Father, who wills to project His
peace through you.
When
you have accepted your mission to project peace you
will find it, for by making it manifest you will see
it. Its holy witnesses will surround you because you
called upon them and they will come to you. I have heard
your call and I have answered it, but you will not look
upon me nor hear the answer which you sought. That is
because you do not yet want only that. Yet as I become
more real to you, you will learn that you do want only
that. And you will see me as you look within, and we
will look upon the world as God created it together.
Through
the eyes of Christ only the real world exists and can
be seen. As you decide so will you see. And all that
you see but witnesses to your decision.
When
you look within and see me, it will be because you have
decided to manifest truth. And as you manifest it you
will see it both without and within, for you will see
it without because you saw it first within. Everything
you behold without is a judgment of what you beheld
within. If it is your judgment it will be wrong, for
judgment is not your function. If it is the judgment
of the Holy Spirit it will be right, for judgment is
His function. You share His function only by judging
as He does, reserving no judgment at all unto yourselves.
For you will judge against yourselves, but He will judge
for you.
Remember,
then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably
to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy and
have condemned yourself to death. The
death penalty is the ego’s ultimate goal, for
it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving
of death as God knows you are deserving of life. The
death penalty never leaves the ego’s mind, for
that is what it always reserves for you in the end.
Wanting
to kill you as the final expression of its feeling for
you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment
you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied
until you die. For your destruction is the one end toward
which it works, and the only end with which it will
be satisfied.
The ego is not a traitor to God to Whom treachery is
impossible, but it is a traitor to you who believe you
have been treacherous to your Father. That
is why the undoing of guilt is an essential part of
the Holy Spirit’s teaching. For as long as you
feel guilty you are listening to the voice of the ego,
which tells you that you have been treacherous to God
and therefore deserve death. You
will think that death comes from God and not from the
ego because, by confusing yourself with the ego, you
believe that you want death. And from what you want
God does not save you.
When
you are tempted to yield to the desire for death REMEMBER
THAT I DID NOT DIE.
You
will realize that this is true when you look within
and see me. Would I have overcome death for myself alone?
And would eternal life have been given me of the Father
unless he had also given it to you? When
you learn to make me manifest you will never see death.
For you will have looked upon the deathless in yourself,
and you will see only the eternal as you look out upon
a world that cannot die.