ARCIM

Daily Lesson 107 ~
April 17

Truth will dispel all illusions and correct all errors in my mind.

What can dispel illusions but the Truth? For what are illusions but errors that remain unrecognized for what they are, believed to be true? Where Truth has entered illusions disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. Illusions are gone because without belief they have no life, and so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only Truth remains. And then errors are easily corrected by the Truth.

Can you imagine what a state of mind without illusions is? How it would feel? Try to remember a time, perhaps a minute, maybe even less, when nothing came to interrupt your Peace; when you were certain you were loved and safe. Then let the sense of quiet that you felt be multiplied a hundred times, and then be multiplied another hundred more. Then try to picture what it would be like to have that moment thus multiplied be extended to the end of time and to Eternity. And now you have a hint, not more than just the faintest intimation, of the State your mind will rest in when the Truth has come.

Without illusions there could be no fear, no doubt, and no attack. When Truth has come all pain is over, for there is no room for transitory thoughts and dead ideas to linger in your mind. When Truth comes It fills your mind completely, liberating you from all beliefs in the ephemeral. They have no place because the Truth has come, and they are nowhere. They cannot be found, for Truth is Everywhere forever now.

When Truth has come It does not stay a while to disappear or change to something else. It does not shift and alter in form, nor come and go to come again. It stays exactly as It always was, to be depended on in every need, and trusted with a perfect Trust in the face all the seeming difficulties and the doubts that the appearances the world presents engender. They will merely dissolve and disappear when Truth dispels the illusions and corrects the errors in your mind.

When Truth has come It harbors in Its Wings the Gift of perfect Constancy, and Love that does not falter in the face of pain, but sees beyond it, steadily and sure. Here is the Gift of healing, for the Truth needs no defense, and therefore no attack is possible. Illusions can be brought to Truth to be dispelled, and errors to be corrected. But the Truth stands far beyond illusion and error, and can’t be brought to them to make them true.

Truth does not come and go or shift or change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading presence and escaping grasp. It does not hide. It stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. It is impossible that anyone could seek It truly and not succeed.

Today belongs to Truth. Give Truth Its Due, and It will give you yours. You are not meant to suffer and to die. Your Creator wills these dreams be gone. Let Truth correct them all. We do not ask for what we do not have. We merely ask for what belongs to us in Truth, that we recognize It as our own. Today we practice on the happy note of certainty that has been born of Truth. The shaky and unsteady footsteps of illusion are not our approach today. We are as certain of success as we are sure we live and hope and breathe and think. We do not doubt we walk with Truth today, and count on It to enter into all the practice periods that we do this day.

Begin each hourly five-minute practice period by asking your holy Self, Who goes with you upon this undertaking, that It be in your awareness as you go with It. You are not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by the selfsame Thought that gave the Gift of Light and Life to all Divine Children. All are your sisters and brothers, and so like to you that our Creator knows that we are all the same. It is your Self you ask to go with you, and how could It be absent where you are?

Truth will dispel all illusions and correct all errors in your mind that tell you that you could be apart from your holy Self. You speak to It today, and make your pledge to let Its Function be fulfilled through you. To share Its Function is to share Its Peace and Joy. Its Confidence is with you as you say:

“Truth will dispel the illusions and correct the errors in my mind, and I will rest in It Who is my holy Self.”

Then let your Self lead you gently to the Truth, which will envelop you and give you Peace so deep and tranquil that you will return to the familiar world reluctantly.

And yet you will be glad to behold this world again. For you will bring with you the promise of the transformation that the Truth that goes with you will carry to the world. This transformation will increase with every gift you give of five small minutes an hour, and the illusions and errors that surround the world will be dispelled and corrected as you let them be dispelled and corrected in your mind.

Remember your function today. Each time you tell yourself with confidence,

“Truth will dispel all illusions and correct all errors in my mind”

you speak for all the world, and for your holy Self who would release the world as It would set you free.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 7: Healing and the Realm of Heaven Within

 

9. Learning the Difference between Pain and Joy

You may feel that what has been said of the Realm of Heaven, and of your own creations which belong to It, describes something you do not know. This is true in a sense, but no more true than a failure to acknowledge the entire result of the ego’s premises. The Realm is also the result of premises, as much as this world is. If the ego’s premises and reasoning are carried honestly to their logical conclusion, they will be found to result in total confusion about everything. These premises therefore couldn’t possibly be maintained unless they were believed in, because if you really saw their result, you could not want it. The only reason you could possibly want any part of the ego’s thought system is because you do not perceive the entirety of it. You therefore have been willing to consider the ego’s premises but not perceive their logical outcome. Is it possible that you have done the same thing with the Premises of the Divine?

Your creations are the logical Outcome of the Divine’s Premises. The Divine’s Thinking has established your creatorship, or ability to create, for you. Your creations are therefore in the Realm of Heaven, exactly where they belong. They belong to your mind as Part of your Identification with the Mind of the Divine. But your state of mind, and your recognition of what is in your mind, depend, at any given moment, on what you believe about your mind. Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the premises that will determine what you accept into your mind.

It is surely clear that you can both accept into your mind what is not really there and deny what is there. Neither of these possibilities requires further elaboration, although both are clearly indefensible even if you elect to defend them. While you can deny the Function that the Divine Itself gave your mind through Its Mind, you cannot prevent It. Your creations are the logical Outcome of what you are. The ability to clearly perceive a logical outcome depends on the willingness to see it, but its truth has nothing to do with willingness at all. Truth is the Divine’s Will. Share Its Will and you will share what It knows. Deny Its Will as your will, and you are denying Its Realm and yours.

The Holy Spirit will guide you to avoid and undo all pain. The undoing of pain must obviously avoid the denial of Divine Will. Surely no one would object to the goal of the undoing of pain if they recognized it. The problem is not whether what Spirit says is true, because that is beyond sane question, but whether or not you want to listen to what It says, i.e., whether you are ready to choose to be sane.

At this stage of awakening, you do not recognize what is actually pain-full and what is truly joy-full, and are, in fact, very apt to confuse the two. The Holy Spirit’s main Function could be said to be to teach you to tell them apart. However strange it may seem that this would be necessary, it obviously is, given how much pain and how little pure Joy you still do experience. The reason is equally obvious. What is truly joyful to your holy Self is painful to the ego, and as long as you are in doubt about what you are, you will be confused about Joy and pain. This confusion is the cause of the entire idea of sacrifice. Follow the Holy Spirit’s Guidance, and you will be giving up the ego, but you will be sacrificing nothing. On the contrary, you will be gaining or remembering your awareness of Everything. When you believe this, there will be no conflict. Because the obvious is not yet obvious to you, you need to demonstrate the obvious to yourself.

Part of your mind still holds the strange belief that doing the opposite of the Divine’s Will can be better for you than doing Its Will. It also believes that it is possible to do the opposite of the Divine’s Will. Therefore, you believe that an impossible choice is open to you, one that is both very fearful and very desirable at the same time. But the Divine wills, It does not wish. Your will is as powerful as Its because it is Its. The ego’s wishes do not mean anything, because the ego wishes for the impossible, that is, for what is not in accord with Divine Will. You can wish for the impossible, but you can only will with the Divine. This is the ego’s weakness and your Strength.

The Holy Spirit always sides with you and with your Strength. As long as you avoid Spirit’s Guidance in any way, you are wishing to be weak. But weakness is frightening. What else, then, can this decision mean except that you wish to be fearful? The Holy Spirit never asks for sacrifice but the ego always does. When you are confused about this very clear distinction in motivation between Strength and weakness, it can only be due to mis-projection. Projection of this kind is a confusion in motivation, and given such confusion trust becomes impossible.

No one gladly follows a guide they do not trust. But this does not mean that the guide is untrustworthy. In the case of reluctance to follow the Holy Spirit as Guide, this can only mean that the follower is acting in an untrustworthy manner. However, this, too, is merely a matter of their own belief. Believing that they can betray, they believe that everything can betray them. But this is only because they have elected to follow false guidance. Unable to follow such guidance without fear, they associate fear with guidance, and then refuse to follow any guidance at all. It is hardly surprising that the result of this decision is confusion.

The Holy Spirit is perfectly trustworthy, as you are. The Divine Itself trusts you, and therefore your Trustworthiness is beyond question. It will always remain beyond question however much you may question It. I trust my choices only because they are the Divine’s Will. This Course said before that you are the Will of the Divine. Its Will is not an idle wish, and your Identification with Its Will is not optional because It is what you are. Sharing the Divine’s Will with me is not really open to choice at all, though it may seem to be. The entire separation lies in this fallacy. And the only way out of the fallacy is to decide that you do not have to decide anything. This is because Everything has been given you by the Divine’s Decision. This is Its Will, and It cannot be undone.

Even the relinquishment or giving up of your false decision-making option, which the ego guards so jealously, is not accomplished by your wish. It has already been accomplished for you by the Will of the Divine, Who has not left you comfortless. Its Voice will teach you how to distinguish between pain and Joy, and lead you out of the confusion you have made. There is no confusion in the true mind of a Child of the Divine, whose will must be the Will of the Creator, because the Creator’s Will is Its Children.

Miracles are in accord with the Will of the Divine, whose Will you have forgotten because you are confused about what you will. This means that you are confused about what you are. If you are the Divine’s Will and do not accept Its Will, you can only be rejecting what you are. But if your Joy is what you are, then you are denying Joy. The miracle therefore is a lesson in what Joy is. Being a lesson in sharing, it is a lesson in Love, which is Joy. Every miracle is thus a lesson in Truth, and by offering Truth you are learning the difference between pain and Joy.