Holy Shift! (8 page)

Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 195. 9:1-4.

 

It can be but myself I crucify.

When this is firmly understood and kept in full awareness, you will not attempt to harm yourself, nor make your body slave to vengeance.

You will not attack yourself, and you will realize that to attack another is but to attack yourself.

You will be free of the insane belief that to attack a brother saves yourself.

And you will understand his safety is your own, and in his healing you are healed.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 196. 1:1-4.

 

What is Heaven but a song of gratitude and love and praise by everything created to the Source of its creation?

The holiest of altars is set where once sin was believed to be.

And here does every light of Heaven come, to be rekindled and increased in joy.

For here is what was lost restored to them, and all their radiance made whole again.

Text-26. IV. 3:5-8.

 

Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you.

The truth bestows these words upon your mind, that you may find the key to light and let the darkness end:

Only my condemnation injures me. Only my own forgiveness sets me free.

Do not forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought.

Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 198. 9:1-6.

 

And God Himself extends His Love and happiness each time you say:

I am not a body. I am free. I hear the Voice that God has given me, and it is only this my mind obeys.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 199. 8:6-9.

 

No one who truly seeks the peace of God can fail to find it.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 185. 11:1.

 

I am not a body.

I am free.

For I am still as God created me.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 201.

 

There is one thing that you have never done; you have not utterly forgotten the body.

It has perhaps faded at times from your sight, but it has not yet completely disappeared.

You are not asked to let this happen for more than an instant, yet it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement happens.

Afterwards you will see the body again, but never quite the same.

And every instant that you spend without awareness of it gives you a different view of it when you return.

Text-18. VII. 2:1-5.

 

Who hangs an empty frame upon a wall and stands before it, deep in reverence, as if a masterpiece were there to see?

Yet if you see your brother as a body, it is but this you do.

The masterpiece that God has set within this frame is all there is to see.

The body holds it for a while, without obscuring it in any way.

Yet what God has created needs no frame, for what He has created He supports and frames within Himself.

His masterpiece He offers you to see. And would you rather see the frame instead of this? And see the picture not at all?

Text-25. II. 5:1-8.

 

Your mission is very simple.

You are asked to live so as to demonstrate that you are not an ego.

Text-4. VI. 6:2-3.

 

You believe that without the ego, all would be chaos.

Yet I assure you that without the ego, all would be love.

Text-15. V. 1:6-7.

 

When I said “I am with you always,” I meant it literally.

I am not absent to anyone in any situation.

Because I am always with you,
you
are the way, the truth and the life.

Text-7. III. 1:7-9.

 

God's blessing shines upon me from within my heart, where He abides.

I need but turn to Him, and every sorrow melts away, as I accept His boundless Love for me.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 207. 1:2-3.

 

I will be still, and let the earth be still along with me.

And in that stillness we will find the peace of God.

It is within my heart, which witnesses to God Himself.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 208. 1:2-4.

 

The Love of God is what created me.

The Love of God is everything I am.

The Love of God proclaimed me as His Son.

The Love of God within me sets me free.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 209. 1:2-5.

 

Remember the sorrowful story of the world, and the glad tidings of salvation.

Remember the plan of God for the restoration of joy and peace.

And do not forget how very simple are the ways of God:

You were lost in the darkness of the world until you asked for light. And then God sent His Son to give it to you.

Psychotherapy-3. III. 8:9-13.

 

When God gave Himself to you in your creation, He established you as host to Him forever.

He has not left you, and you have not left Him.

All your attempts to deny His magnitude, and make His Son hostage to the ego, cannot make little whom God has joined with Him.

Every decision you make is for Heaven or for hell, and brings you the awareness of what you decided for.

Text-15. III. 5:4-7.

 

Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?

You will accept only whom you invite.

You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you.

Yet this is not real freedom, for it still depends on how you see it.

The Holy Spirit is there, although He cannot help you without your invitation.

And the ego is nothing, whether you invite it in or not.

Real freedom depends on welcoming reality, and of your guests only the Holy Spirit is real.

Text-11. II. 7:1-7.

 

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you.

In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, “My brother, choose again.”

Text-31. VIII. 3:1-2.

 

The Holy Spirit will always guide you truly, because your joy is His.

This is His Will for everyone because He speaks for the Kingdom of God, which
is
joy.

Following Him is therefore the easiest thing in the world, and the only thing that is easy, because it is not of the world.

It is therefore natural.

Text-7. XI. 1:1-4.

 

The Holy Spirit is my only Guide.

He walks with me in love.

And I give thanks to Him for showing me the way to go.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 215. 1:2-4.

 

All that I do I do unto myself.

If I attack, I suffer.

But if I forgive, salvation will be given me.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 216. 1:2-4.

 

Let us be glad that we can walk the world, and find so many chances to perceive another situation where God's gift can once again be recognized as ours!

And thus will all the vestiges of hell, the secret sins and hidden hates be gone.

And all the loveliness which they concealed appear like lawns of Heaven to our sight, to lift us high above the thorny roads we travelled on before the Christ appeared.

Text-31. VIII. 9:1-3.

 

The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.

Text-26. IX. 6:1.

 

Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs.

It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel.

It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach.

Would you be this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this:

Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there.

Text-31. VIII. 1:1-5.

 

Let me not wander from the way of peace, for I am lost on other roads than this.

But let me follow Him Who leads me home, and peace is certain as the Love of God.

Workbook-p I. Lesson 220. 1:2-3.

 

Father, I come to You today

to seek the peace that

You alone can give.

I come in silence.

In the quiet of my heart,

the deep recesses of my mind,

I wait and listen for Your Voice.

My Father, speak to me today.

I come to hear Your Voice

in silence and in certainty and love,

sure You will hear my call

and answer me.

Workbook-p II. Lesson 221. 1:1-5.

 

God is with me.

He is my Source of life, the life within, the air I breathe, the food by which I am sustained, the water which renews and cleanses me.

He is my home, wherein I live and move; the Spirit which directs my actions, offers me Its Thoughts, and guarantees my safety from all pain.

He covers me with kindness and with care, and holds in love the Son He shines upon, who also shines on Him.

How still is he who knows the truth of what He speaks today!

Workbook-p II. Lesson 222. 1:1-5.

 

I was mistaken when I thought I lived apart from God, a separate entity that moved in isolation, unattached, and housed within a body.

Now I know my life is God's, I have no other home, and I do not exist apart from Him.

He has no Thoughts that are not part of me, and I have none but those which are of Him.

Workbook-p II. Lesson 223. 1:1-3.

 

My true Identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give it light.

It lights the world as well.

It is the gift my Father gave to me; the one as well I give the world.

There is no gift but this that can be either given or received.

This is reality, and only this. This is illusion's end. It is the truth.

Workbook-p II. Lesson 224. 1:1-7.

 

Prayer is the greatest gift with which God blessed His Son at his creation.

It was then what it is to become; the single voice Creator and creation share; the song the Son sings to the Father, Who returns the thanks it offers Him unto the Son.

Endless the harmony, and endless, too, the joyous concord of the Love They give forever to Each Other.

And in this, creation is extended.

Song of Prayer-1. Intro. 1:1-4.

 

Prayer is a ladder reaching up to Heaven.

At the top there is a transformation much like your own, for prayer is part of you.

The things of earth are left behind, all unremembered.

There is no asking, for there is no lack.

Identity in Christ is fully recognized as set forever, beyond all change and incorruptible.

The light no longer flickers, and will never go out.

Song of Prayer-1. II. 7:1-6.

 

Father, it is today that I am free,

because my will is Yours. I

thought to make another will.

Yet nothing that I thought apart

from You exists. And I am free

because I was mistaken, and

did not affect my own reality at all

by my illusions. Now I give them

up, and lay them down before

the feet of truth, to be removed

forever from my mind. This is

my holy instant of release.

Father, I know my will is one

with Yours.

Workbook-p II. Lesson 227. 1:1-7.

 

God has condemned me not.

No more do I.

Workbook-p II. Lesson 228. 2:1-6.

 

I seek my own Identity, and find It in these words:

“Love, which created me, is what I am.”

Now need I seek no more.

Love has prevailed.

So still It waited for my coming home, that I will turn away no longer from the holy face of Christ.

And what I look upon attests the truth of the Identity I sought to lose, but which my Father has kept safe for me.

Workbook-p II. Lesson 229. 1:1-5.

 

Father, I seek the peace You

gave as mine in my creation.

What was given then must be

here now, for my creation was

apart from time, and still

remains beyond all change.

The peace in which Your Son

was born into Your Mind is

shining there unchanged.

I am as You created me.

I need but call on You to find

the peace You gave.

It is Your Will that gave it

to Your Son.

Workbook-p II. Lesson 230. 2:1-6.

 

What can I seek for, Father, but