A Course in Miracles

Chapter 23 - Salvation Without Compromise

Is it not true you do not recognize some of the forms attack can take?

If it is true attack in any form will hurt you—and will do so just as much as in another form which you do recognize—then it must follow that you do not always recognize the source of pain.

Attack in any form is equally destructive.

Its purpose does not change—its sole intent is murder. And what form of murder serves to cover the massive guilt and frantic fear of punishment the murderer must feel?

He may deny he is a murderer, and justify his savagery with smiles as he attacks, yet he will suffer, and will look on his intent in nightmares where the smiles are gone, and where the purpose rises to meet his horrified awareness and pursue him still. For no one thinks of murder and escapes the guilt the thought entails.

If the intent is death, what matter the form it takes?

Is death in any form—however lovely and charitable it may seem to be—a blessing and a sign the Voice for God speaks through you to your brother?

The wrapping does not make the gift you give. An empty box, however beautiful and gently given, still contains nothing, and neither the receiver nor the giver is long deceived.

Withhold forgiveness from your brother, and you attack him. You give him nothing, and receive of him but what you gave.

Salvation is no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept but part of what you want; to take a little, and give up the rest. Salvation gives up nothing. It is complete for everyone.

Let the idea of compromise but enter, and the awareness of salvation’s purpose is lost, because it is not recognized. It is denied where compromise has been accepted, for compromise is the belief salvation is impossible. It would maintain you can attack a little, love a little, and know the difference. Thus it would teach a little of the same can still be different, and yet the same remain intact, as one.

Does this make sense? Can it be understood?

This course is easy just because it makes no compromise, yet it seems difficult to those who still believe that compromise is possible. They do not see that, if it is, salvation is attack.

Yet it is certain the belief that salvation is impossible cannot uphold a quiet, calm assurance it has come. Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for that, and understand forgiveness.

Would you not want to recognize assault upon your peace in any form, if only thus does it become impossible that you lose sight of it?

It (peace) can be kept shining before your vision, forever clear and never out of sight, if you defend it not. Those who believe that peace can be defended, and that attack is justified on its behalf, cannot perceive it lies within them.

How could they know?

Could they accept forgiveness side by side with the belief that murder takes some forms by which their peace is saved?

Would they be willing to accept the fact their savage purpose is directed against themselves?

There Is No Safety In A Battleground

No one unites with enemies, nor is at one with them in purpose.

And no one compromises with an enemy but hates him still, for what he kept from him.

Mistake not truce for peace, nor compromise for the escape from conflict.

To be released from conflict means that it is over. The door is open; you have left the battleground.

You have not lingered there in cowering hope, because the guns are still an instant, and the fear that haunts the place of death is not apparent, that it will not return.

There is no safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above, and not be touched.

But from within it, you can find no safety.

Not one tree left standing still will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands against the faith in murder.

Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate and the unnatural intent to murder and to die.

Think you the form that murder takes can offer safety?

Can guilt be absent from a battlefield?

A Course in Miracles

Chapter 23 - The Fear of Life

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.

You are not asked to fight against your wish to murder, 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.

So will they be to those who see God’s Son a body, 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?

Can it create, and be what it creates?

And can it offer its creations all that it is, and never suffer loss?

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.

Either the Father and the Son are murderers, or neither is.

Life makes not death, creating like itself.

The lovely light of your relationship is like the love of God. It cannot yet assume the holy function God gave His Son, for your forgiveness of one another is not complete as yet, and so it cannot be extended to all creation. 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.

This is your part; to realize that murder in any form is not your will.

The overlooking of the battleground is now your purpose.

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.

How can a battle be perceived as nothingness when you engage in it?

How can the truth of miracles be recognized if murder is your choice?

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 (of attack) you know. There is

• a stab of pain,
• a twinge of guilt,
• and above all, a loss of peace.

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.