A
Course in Miracles
Chapter 19 - Beyond the Body Obstacles to Peace
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. Would you reinforce it now? You are not asked to let it go for yourselves 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...
stand between your brothers and salvation? And yet, it is this little remnant of attack you cherish still against each other that 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 each other 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 will apart from this. You have no purpose apart from each other, 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 which you would interpose will be surmounted. To overcome the world is no more difficult than to surmount your little wall. For in the miracle of your 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 must fall away because of the appeal you answered. For from you who answered, He Who answered you would call. His home is in your holy relationship. Do no attempt to stand between Him and His holy purpose, for it is yours. Bbut 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 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 Who 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. How mighty can a little feather be before the great wings of truth? Can it oppose an eagle’s flight, or hinder the advance of summer? Can it interfere with the effects of summer’s sun upon a garden covered by the snow? See but how easily this little whisp is lifted up and carried away, never to return, and part with it in gladness, not regret. For it is nothing in itself, and stood for nothing when you had greater faith in its protection. Would you not rather greet the summer sun than fix your gaze upon a disappearing snowflake, and shiver in remembrance of the winter’s cold? Attraction of Guilt The attraction of guilt produces fear of love, for love would never look on guilt at all. It is the nature of love to look upon only the truth, for there it sees itself, with which it would unite in holy union and completion. As love must look past fear, so must fear see love not. For love contains the end of guilt, as surely as fear depends on it. Overlooking guilt completely, it sees no fear; being wholly without attack, it could not be afraid. Fear is attracted to what love sees not, and each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist. Fear looks on guilt with just the same devotion that love looks on itself. And each (fear & love) has messengers which they send forth, and which return to them with messages written in the language in which their going forth was asked. Love’s messengers are gently sent and return with messages of love and gentleness. The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to seek out guilt and cherish every scrap of evil and of sin which they can find, losing none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully before their lord and master. Perception cannot obey two masters, each asking for messages of different things in different languages. What
fear would feed upon, love overlooks.
What
fear demands, love cannot even see.
The fierce attraction which guilt holds for fear is wholly absent from love’s gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to fear, and quite invisible. Relationships in this world are the result of how the world is seen, and this depends on which emotion (love or fear) was called on to send its messengers to look upon it and return with word of what they saw. Fear’s messengers are trained through terror, and they tremble when their master calls upon them to serve him. For fear is merciless even to its friends. Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search of guilt, for they are kept cold and starving, and made very vicious by their master, who allows them to feast only upon what they return to him. No little shred of guilt escapes their hungry eyes, and in their savage search for sin, they pounce on any living thing they see and carry it screaming to their master, to be devoured. Send not these savage messengers into the world, to feast upon it and to prey upon reality, for they will bring you word of bones and skin and flesh. They have been taught to seek for the corruptible, and to return with gorges filled with things decayed and rotted. To them such things are beautiful because they seem to allay their savage pangs of hunger, for they are frantic with the pain of fear and would avert the punishment of him who sends them forth by offering him what they hold dear. Love’s Messengers The Holy Spirit has given you love’s messengers to send instead of those you trained through fear. They are as eager to return to you what they hold dear as are the others.If you send them forth, they will see only the blameless and the beautiful, the gentle and the kind. They will be as careful to let no little act of charity, no tiny expression of forgiveness, no little breathe of love escape their notice. And they will return with all the happy things they found, to share them lovingly with you. Be not afraid of them. They offer you salvation. Theirs are the messages of safety, for they see the world as kind. If you send forth only the messengers the Holy Spirit gives you, wanting no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear which you laid not upon it, and none you cannot ask love’s messengers to remove from it, and see it still. The Holy Spirit has given you His messengers to send to each other, and return to each with what love sees. They have been given to replace the hungry dogs of fear you sent instead, and they go forth to signify the end of fear. Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is a feast which honors your holy relationship, and at which everyone is welcomed as an honored guest. And in a holy instant grace is said by everyone together as they join in gentleness before the table of communion. And I will join you there, as long ago I promised and promise still. For in your new relationship am I made welcome. And where I am made welcome, there I am. I
am made welcome in the state of grace, which means you
have at last forgiven me. For I became the symbol of your
sin, and so I had to die instead of you. To the ego sin
means death, and so Atonement is achieved through murder.
Salvation is looked upon as a way by which the Son of
God was killed instead of you.
Yet
would I offer you my body, you whom I love, knowing its
littleness? Or
would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart? Mine
was no greater value than yours; no better means for communication
of salvation, but not its Source.
No one can die for anyone. And death does not atone for sin. Yet you can live to show it (death) is not real. The body does appear to be the symbol of sin, while you believe that it can get you what you want. While you believe that it can give you pleasure, you will also believe that it can bring you pain. To think you could be satisfied and happy with so little is to hurt yourself.And to limit the happiness that you would have, calls upon pain to fill your meager store and make your lives complete. This is completion, as the ego sees it. For guilt creeps in where happiness has been removed, and substitutes for it. Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt, because it goes beyond the body. |