February 14th 2014 Lesson 332
Part II Introduction
We will continue spending time with God each morning and night and at each waking hour, using all future lessons as introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter peace, calling to God when we have need of Him as we are tempted to forget our goal. During these holy times, we will say some simple words of welcome, and expect our Father to reveal Himself to us, as He has promised that He would when we invited Him.
This is how our times with Him will now be spent: we say the words of invitation that His Voice suggests, and then we wait for Him to come to us. Sit silently and wait upon your Father. He has willed to come to you when you have recognized it is your will He do so. We need only call to God, and all temptations disappear. Instead of words, we need but feel His Love. Instead of prayers, we need but call His Name. Instead of judging, we need but be still and let all things be healed.
Our lessons will now be preceded by a theme of special relevance that we should review before each lesson until another is given us. They should be slowly read and thought about a little while, preceding one of the holy times we sit in silence and wait for God to reveal Himself to us. The next of these special thoughts follow and are relevant to lessons 331 - 340:12. What Is the Ego?
The ego is idolatry; the sign of a limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death. It is the "will" that sees the Will of God as enemy, and takes a form in which it is denied. The ego is the "proof" that strength is weak and love is fearful, life is really death, and what opposes God alone is true.
The ego is insane. In fear it stands beyond the Everywhere, apart from All, in separation from the Infinite. In its insanity it thinks it has become a victor over God Himself. And in its terrible autonomy it "sees" the Will of God has been destroyed. It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams; its enemies, who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking them.
The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the death of God, when he abides in Him? What can he know of sorrow and of suffering, when he lives in eternal joy? What can he know of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack, when all there is surrounding him is everlasting peace, forever conflict-free and undisturbed, in deepest silence and tranquility?
To know reality is not to see the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails. In suffering, the price for faith in it is so immense that crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar where its sickly followers prepare to die.
Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son, His dwelling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one with Him.
Lesson 332
Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.
- The ego makes illusions. Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining them away. Truth never makes attack. It merely is. And by its presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real. Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and take its rightful place within the mind. Without forgiveness is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility. Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance.
- Invitation Prayer: We would not bind the world again today. Fear holds it prisoner. And yet Your love has given us the means to set it free. Father, we would release it now. For as we offer freedom, it is given us. And we would not remain as prisoners, while You are holding freedom out to us.
Insights/comments:
- Knowing that we are one with our Creator, appearances to the contrary, we can begin to understand and accept that our will is one with His, so “sin” is impossible for us. The illusions we as egos make, are what justifies the need for attack and defenses, but now we can begin to recognize that defense and attack are unnecessary and that forgiveness is the key to unlocking our minds from the illusion of apparent separation. We are all one, and everything that comes into our awareness, is an opportunity for us to remember this truth by forgiving any impulse of our ego to defend or attack. The ego is afraid only because it believes in duality, but the truth of oneness is the light that shines through all illusions. “Truth never makes attack. It merely is.” So this is the means by which we can differentiate between Truth and the ego’s fear. One simply is, while the other is either attacking or defending. Our freedom and the freedom of the world depends on our ability to remember the Truth of oneness, to recognize the ego’s fear and respond with forgiveness.
I and my Creator are One. 
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