Only the self-accused
condemn. As you prepare to make a choice that will result in different
outcomes, there is first one thing that must be overlearned. It
must become a habit of response so typical of everything you do
that it becomes your first response to all temptation, and to every
situation that occurs.
Learn this, and learn
it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span
of time you cannot realize:
You never hate
your brother for his sins, but only for your own.
Whatever form his
sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe it
to be yours, and therefore meriting a “just” attack.
Why should his sins
be sins, if you did not believe they could not be forgiven in you?
Why are they real in him, if you did not believe that they are your
reality? And why do you attack them everywhere, except you hate
yourself? Are you a sin?
You answer “yes”
whenever you attack, for by attack do you assert that you are guilty
and must give as you deserve. And what can you deserve but what
you are? If you did not believe that you deserved attack, it never
would occur to you to give attack to anyone at all. Why should you?
What would be the gain to you? What could the outcome be that you
would want? And how could murder bring you benefit?
Sins are in bodies.
They are not perceived in minds. They are not seen as purposes but
actions. Bodies act, and minds do not. And therefore must the body
be at fault for what it does. It is not seen to be a passive thing,
obeying your commands and doing nothing of itself at all. If you
are sin you are a body, for the mind acts not. And purpose must
be in the body, not the mind. The body must act on its own and motivate
itself. If you are sin, you lock the mind within the body, and you
give its purpose to its prison-house, which acts instead of it.
A jailer does not follow orders, but enforces orders on the prisoner.
Yet is the body prisoner and
not the mind. The body thinks no thoughts. It has no power to learn,
to pardon, nor enslave. It gives no orders that the mind need serve
nor sets conditions that it must obey. It holds in prison but the
willing mind that would abide in it. It sickens at the bidding of
the mind that would become its prisoner. And it grows old and dies
because that mind is sick within itself. Learning is all that causes
change. And so the body, where no learning can occur, could never
change unless the mind preferred the body change in its appearances
to suit the purpose given by the mind. For it can learn, and there
is all change made.
The mind that thinks
it is a sin has but one purpose; that the body be the source of
sin and keep it in the prison-house it chose and guards and hold
itself at bay, a sleeping prisoner to the snarling dogs...
of hate and evil,
sickness and attack;
of pain and age,
of grief and suffering.
Here are the thoughts
of sacrifice preserved, for here guilt rules and orders that the
world be like itself; a place where nothing can find mercy or survive
the ravages of fear except in murder and in death. For here are
you made sin, and sin cannot abide the joyous and the free, for
they are enemies which sin must kill. In death is sin preserved;
and those who think that they are sin, must die for what they think
they are.
Let
us be glad that you will see what you believe, and that it has been
given you to change what you believe. The
body will but follow. It
can never lead you where you would not be. It
does not guard your sleep, nor interfere with your awakening. Release
your body from imprisonment, and you will see no one as prisoner
to what you have escaped. You
will not want to hold in guilt your chosen enemies, nor keep in
chains to the illusion of a changing love the ones you think are
friends.
The
innocent release in gratitude for their release. And what they
see, upholds their freedom from imprisonment and death. Open
your mind to change, and there will be no ancient penalty exacted
from your brother or yourself. For
God has said there is no sacrifice that can be asked; there is
no sacrifice that can be made.
