A Course in Miracles Chapter 23 - War Against Yourself Fear
of Life or Above the Battleground The fear of God is fear of life and not of death. Yet He remains the only place of safety. In Him is no attack, and no illusion in any form stalks Heaven. Heaven is wholly true. No difference enters, and what is all the same cannot conflict.
But you are asked to realize the form it takes conceals the same intent. And it is this you fear and not the form. What is not love is murder. What is not loving must be an attack. Every illusion is an assault on truth, and every one does violence to the idea of love because it seems to be of equal truth.
What can be equal to the truth yet different? Murder and love are incompatible. Yet if they both are true, then must they be the same and indistinguishable from one another.
For it is not the body that is like the Son's Creator. And what is lifeless cannot be the Son of Life. How can a body be extended to hold the universe?
God does not share His function with a body. He gave the function to create unto His Son because it is His own. It is not sinful to believe the function of the Son is murder, but it is insanity. What is the same can have no different function. Creation is the means for God's extension, and what is His must be His Son's as well.
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.
Yet does the Holy Spirit understand how to increase your little gifts and make them mighty. Also He understands how your relationship is raised above the battleground, in it no more.
Be lifted up and from a higher place look down upon it. From there will your perspective be quite different. Here in
the midst of it, it does seem real.
Here you
have chosen to be part of it.
Here
murder is your choice. Yet
from above, the choice is miracles instead of murder.
And the perspective coming from this choice shows you
the battle is not real and easily escaped. Bodies may
battle, but the clash of forms is meaningless. And it
is over when you realize that it never was begun.
Temptation To Attack When the temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember you can see the battle from above. Even in forms you do not recognize, the signs you know. There is
a ...
stab
of pain,
a
twinge of guilt, and above all,
This
you know well.
When it occurs, leave not your place on high but quickly choose a miracle instead of murder. And God Himself and all the lights of Heaven will gently lean to you and hold you up. For you have chosen to remain where He would have you, and no illusion can attack the peace of God together with His Son. See no one from the battleground, for there you look on him from nowhere. You have no reference-point from where to look, where meaning can be given what you see. For only bodies could attack and murder, and if this is your purpose, then you must be one with them. Only a purpose unifies, and those who share a purpose have a mind as one. The body has no purpose and must be solitary. From below, it cannot be surmounted. From above, the limits it exerts on those in battle still are gone and not perceived.
Think what is given those who share their Father's purpose and who know that it is theirs! They want for nothing. Sorrow of any kind is inconceivable. Only the light they love is in awareness, and only love shines upon them forever. It is their past, their present, and their future always the same, eternally complete, and wholly shared. They know it is impossible their happiness could ever suffer change of any kind. Perhaps you think the battleground can offer something that you can win. Can it be anything that offers you a perfect calmness and a sense of love so deep and quiet that no touch of doubt can ever mar your certainty? And that will last forever? Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. What could they gain but loss of their perfection? For everything fought for on the battleground is of the body--something it seems to offer or to own. No
one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation,
nor could he value the body's offerings.
The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from the
quiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict
with everything? And what is there that offers less, yet
could be wanted more? Who with the love of God upholding
him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to
make?
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