ARCIM

Daily Lesson 197 ~
July 16

It can be only my holy Self’s Gratitude that I receive.

Here is the second step we take to free your mind from the belief in an outside force pitted against your own. You make attempts at kindness and forgiveness. Yet you turn them to their opposites unless you find external gratitude and expressed thanks. Your gifts must be received with honor, lest they be withdrawn. And so you unconsciously believe that the Divine’s Gifts are loans at best, at worst, deceptions that would cheat you of defenses to ensure that when what you fear is stalking you strikes, you will be easily overcome.

How easily are the Divine and guilt confused by those who know not what their thoughts can do. Deny your Strength, and weakness must become what you believe will save you. Perceive yourself as bound, and prison bars become your home. Nor will you embrace your Strength or leave your prison house until guilt and awakening are not perceived as the same, but Freedom and awakening are perceived as joined, with Strength beside them, to be sought and found, recognized and received.

The world must thank you when you offer it Release from your illusions. Yet your holy Self’s Thanks belong to you as well, for the world’s Release can only mirror yours. Your gratitude is all your gifts require that they be a lasting offering of a thankful heart released from hellish nightmares forever. Yet this you would undo by taking back your gifts because you believed they were not honored. It is your holy Self Who honors them and gives them fitting thanks, for it is you who have received the gifts.

It does not matter if another thinks your gifts unworthy. In their mind there is a part that joins with yours in giving thanks for these gifts. It does not matter if your gifts seem ineffectual or lost. They are always received by Spirit where they are given, and become a part of your and the world’s healing, and your eternal Treasure House. In your gratitude are they accepted universally, and thankfully acknowledged by the Heart of the Divine Itself. Do not withdraw them when It has gratefully accepted them for you.

The Divine blesses every gift you give to It, and every true gift is given It because it can be given only to yourself, and what belongs to the Divine must be Its Own. Yet you won’t realize that Its Gifts are sure, eternal, changeless, limitless, forever giving forth, extending Love, and adding to your never-ending Joy, while you forgive only to withhold forgiveness again.

Withdraw the gifts you give and you will think that what is given you has also been withdrawn. But learn to let forgiveness truly take away all mistakes, hurts, wrongs, crimes, sin and evil you think have been committed, seeing them all as one illusion which Atonement was created to dissolve, and you can never think the Gifts of the Divine are lent merely for a little while before It snatches Them away again in tragedy or death. For tragedy and death will have no meaning for you then. And with the end of this belief is fear forever gone.

Thank your holy Self for this, for It is grateful only unto the Divine, and It gives thanks for you unto Itself. To everyone who has forgotten will Divine Essence yet come, for everyone lives and moves in It. Divine Essence’s Being in Its Creator is secure because Their Will is One. Their Gratitude to all Children of the Divine is Endless, for Gratitude remains a Part of Love.

Thanks be to you, holy Child of the Divine, for as you were created you contain all things within your holy Self. And you are still as the Divine created you. Nor can you dim the Light of your Perfection. In your heart is the Heart of the Divine. It holds you dear because you are Itself. All Gratitude belongs to you – and to all our sisters and brothers – because of what you are.

Give thanks as you receive it. Be you free of all ingratitude to anyone who makes your holy Self complete. And from this Self is no one left outside. Give thanks for all the countless Channels that extend this Self. Forgive and have compassion for all those who still sleep and suffer in their nightmares. All that you do on behalf of awakening is given unto Divine Essence. All that you truly think can only be Its Thoughts, sharing with It the holy Thoughts of the Divine. Receive now the Gratitude you denied yourself when you forgot the Function the Divine has given you. But never think that It has ever ceased to offer Thanks to you.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 18: The Reality of the Holy Relationship

 

5. Shifting Out of the Unholy Relationship

The holy relationship is an expression of the Holy Instant while living in this world. Like everything about awakening, the Holy Instant is a practical device, witnessed by Its results. The Holy Instant never fails. The experience of It is always felt. But without expression It is not remembered. The holy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience of the Holy Instant in which the relationship becomes what it is in Truth. And as the unholy relationship is a continuing hymn of disdain disguised as love in praise of its maker, so is the holy relationship a happy song of praise to the Redeemer of relationships.

The holy relationship is learned, and when learned it becomes a major step toward the perception of the Real World. The holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment. It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and perceived anew. In all of its aspects – as it begins, develops, and becomes accomplished – it represents the reversal of the unholy relationship.

Be comforted in this: the only difficult phase in the holy relationship is the beginning. For here, the goal of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the exact opposite of what it was. This is the first result of offering the relationship to the Holy Spirit to use for Its Purposes. This invitation is accepted immediately by the Holy Spirit, Who wastes no time in introducing the practical results of asking It to enter. At once, Spirit’s Goal for the relationship replaces yours. This is accomplished very rapidly, but this has the effect of making the relationship seem disturbed and disjunctive, and can be quite distressing. The reason is very clear. For the relationship as a special relationship is out of line with its new Goal, and clearly unsuited to the Purpose that has been accepted for it. In its unholy condition your goal was all that seemed to give the relationship meaning. Now, with its new Goal, it seems to make no sense. Many relationships are broken off at this point, and the pursuit of the old goal reestablished in another special relationship, because once the Goal of Holiness has been accepted for the unholy relationship, it can never again be what it was.

The temptation of the ego in your mind and your brother’s or sister’s to mis-project becomes extremely intense as a result of this shift in goals. For the relationship has not, as yet, been changed sufficiently to make its former goal completely without attraction, and its structure is “threatened” by the recognition of the inappropriateness of its old goal for meeting its new Purpose. The conflict between the new Goal and the old structure of the relationship is so apparent in the beginning phase of the shift that it is clear that they cannot coexist. Yet the Goal will not be changed by Spirit back to the old one. Now that the new Goal is set firmly in the context of the unholy relationship, there is no resolution except to change the structure of the old relationship to fit the new Goal. Until this happy solution is seen and accepted as the only way out of this conflict, the relationship will be experienced as being severely strained.

It would not be kinder to shift the goal more slowly. For then the contrast between the old and the new relationship would be obscured, and the ego given time to reinterpret each slow step according to its liking. Only a radical shift in purpose could induce a complete change of mind about what the whole relationship is for. As this change develops, and is finally accomplished, the experience of the relationship grows increasingly beneficent and joyous. But at the beginning the situation is experienced as being very precarious, because a relationship undertaken by two individuals for unholy purposes suddenly has Holiness for its goal.

As these two contemplate their relationship from the point of view of this new Purpose, they are inevitably appalled. Their perception of the relationship may even become quite disorganized. Yet the former organization of their perception no longer serves the Purpose they have agreed to set with the Holy Spirit. This is the time for faith in Spirit to transform the relationship into the joyful and awakening experience it will be. You invited this new Goal for the relationship to be set for you, which was an act of faith. Do not abandon faith now that the rewards of faith are being introduced. As you believed that the Holy Spirit was there to accept the relationship, it is now time to continue to believe that It is there to refine and purify what It has taken under Its Guidance. Have faith in each other in what only seems to be a trying time. You had found yourselves in a dysfunctional relationship, recognized as such in the light of its goal. The new Goal is set. And your relationship now has Sanity as its Purpose.

Now the ego counsels each of you thus: Substitute for your current relationship a different one, to which your former goal will still seem quite appropriate. You can escape from your newly-experienced distress only by getting rid of each other. You need not part entirely, if you choose not to do so. But you must exclude major areas of fantasy from each other to save your “sanity.”

Do not listen to such counsel now! Have faith in Spirit, Who has answered you. It has heard your invitation to find a better way, and is being very explicit in Its Answer. You are not now entirely senseless, and in honesty you can acknowledge that Spirit has given you a most explicit Response. Now It asks for faith a little longer, even if you are feeling bewilderment. For this confusion will go, and you will see the justification for your faith emerge to bring you shining conviction. Don’t abandon your conviction or each other now. Your relationship has been reborn as holy. Accept with gladness what you do not yet understand, and let it be made clear to you, as you perceive Spirit’s Purpose work in it to make it holy.

You will find many opportunities in the beginning phase of your new relationship to blame each other for the “failure” of your old one. For your new one will seem, at times, to have no purpose. A sense of aimlessness will come to haunt you, and to remind you of all the ways you once sought for satisfaction, and thought you found it. Remember now the misery you really found. And do not now try to breathe life into your fading egos. For your relationship has not been disrupted, but has been born anew. You are very new in the ways of awakening, and may think you have lost your way. Your way is lost, but think not that this is a loss.

In the newness of your holy relationship, remember that you have started again together. And take each other’s hand to walk together along a Road far more familiar than you now believe. It is certain that you will remember a Goal unchanged throughout Eternity. For you have simply chosen the Goal of the Divine, from Whom your true Intent was never absent. Throughout the Divine Family is the Song of Freedom heard in joyous Resonance with your choice. You have joined with many in the Holy Instant, and they have joined with you. Think not your choice will leave you comfortless. For the Divine Itself has blessed your holy relationship. Join in Its Blessing, and withhold not yours upon it. For all your new relationship needs now is your blessing, that you may see that in it rests the promise of awakening.

Do not condemn awakening, for it has come to you. And welcome it together, for it has come to join you together in a relationship in which all the Divine Family is together blessed. You undertook together to invite the Holy Spirit into your relationship. It could not have entered otherwise. And though you have made and will still make many mistakes, you have also made enormous efforts to help Spirit do Its Work. And It has not been lacking in Appreciation for all you have done for It, nor does It see your mistakes at all.

Be similarly grateful to each other in this transition from the unholy relationship. Do not let your appreciation flicker and grow dim in what seems to be the darkness of the mistakes, or enter upon a campaign to blame each other for the discomfort of the situation in which you find yourselves. For by such a lack of thanks and gratitude you would make yourselves unable to express the Holy Instant at the heart of your new holy relationship, and thus would lose sight of It. The experience of an Instant, however compelling it may be, is easily forgotten if you allow time to close over it. It must be kept shining and gracious in your awareness of time, and not concealed within it. The Holy Instant will remain, as you remain with It. Therefore consistently appreciate each other’s good efforts, and see beyond mistakes.

To give thanks to each other is to appreciate the Holy Instant, and thus enable Its Results to be accepted and shared. To take offense in each other is not to lose the Instant, but to temporarily render It powerless in Its Effects. You have received the Holy Instant. Do not now establish a condition in which you cannot use It. For otherwise you will not realize that It is with you still. By cutting yourself off from Its Expression, you would deny yourself Its Benefit. And this would be reinforced every time you take offense in each other, for the offense must blind you to yourself. It is impossible to deny yourself, and at the same time recognize what has been given and received by you.

You stand together in the holy Presence of Truth Itself. Here is the Goal, together with you. Think you not that the Goal Itself will gladly arrange the Means for Its Accomplishment? It is just this discrepancy between the Purpose that has been accepted and the means as they stand now that seems to make you suffer, but which makes Heaven glad. If Heaven were outside you, you could not share in Its Gladness. But because It is within you, the Gladness, too, is yours.

You are joined with Spirit in Purpose, but remain still separate and divided on the means. Yet the Goal is fixed, firm, and unalterable. And the Means – the new structure of your relationship – will surely come into place, because the Goal is sure. And you will share the Gladness of the Divine Family that it is so. As you begin to recognize and accept the gifts you have so freely given to each other, you will also accept the Effects of the Holy Instant, and use them to correct all your mistakes and free you from their results. And learning this you will have also learned how to release all your sisters and brothers, and offer their Release in gladness and thanksgiving to It Who gave you your Release, and Who would extend It through you.