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Chapter 20: Beyond the Obstacles to Peace

9. Preparing for the Journey’s End

To perceive with calm the fear of the Divine in oneself requires preparation, for only the truly sane can observe stark insanity and raving madness with empathy and compassion and without fear. Only if you attempt to share insanity with your sisters and brothers does it seem terrifying, but when you realize it is only a thought in your own mind, you see that it is also able to be corrected. And this is true sanity.

You do seem to share insanity until you see your sisters and brothers with perfect Love and faith and tenderness. Until you accept and give and have complete forgiveness, you will still stand unforgiving. You fear the Divine only when and because you fear your sisters and brothers. You fear those you do not forgive. And no one reaches Love with fear beside them.

These sisters and brothers who stand beside you still seem to you at times to be strangers. And at these times you feel that you do not know them, and your interpretation of them is very fearful. And thus you attack them still in your mind, to keep what seems to be yourself unharmed. Yet in their hands is your awakening. When you still look upon their madness, you will disdain it because you believe you share in it. And all the compassion and forgiveness that would heal it gives way to fear.

My sisters and brothers, you need forgiveness of each other. For you will believe in madness or share in Heaven together. And you will raise your eyes in faith together or not at all. Beside each of you is one who offers you the Chalice of Atonement, for the Holy Spirit is in them. Would you accept their gift to you, or hold their mistakes against them? Is this giver of awakening your friend or adversary? You must choose which they are to be to you, remembering that you will receive of them according to your choice. They have in them the Power to forgive your mistakes, as you for them. Neither of you can give it to yourself alone. And yet your Awakener stands beside each one. Let your sisters and brothers be what they truly are, and seek not to make of Love an enemy.

Behold your Friend, Divine Essence, Who stands beside you. How holy and how beautiful It is! You thought It made this insane world, and thereby sinned, because you cast the veil of sin upon It to hide Its Loveliness. Yet still It holds forgiveness out to you to share Its Holiness. This One you once thought of as stranger and enemy still offers you awakening, as your Friend. The “adversaries” of Divine Essence, the worshippers of “sin,” know not whom they attack.

These are your sisters and brothers, seemingly abandoned by their Creator through their belief in separation and sin, and waiting for release from pain. Would you not offer them forgiveness, when only they can offer it to you? As you give them their awakening, they will give you yours, as surely as the Divine created and loves everything that has Being. And they will give it truly, for it will be both offered and received. From your most holy Friend you can receive and offer to each other every Grace of Heaven. Let your sisters and brothers give this Grace, for by receiving It of them, you offer It to them. And they will receive of you what you received of them. Awakening has been given you to give each other, and thus receive it. Whom you forgive is free. And what you give, you share in. Forgive the mistakes your sisters and brothers have committed, and all the guilt you think you perceive in them.

Here is the Holy Place of Resurrection to which we come again, and to which we will return until awakening is received and accomplished. Think who your sisters and brothers are before you would condemn them. And offer thanks to the Divine that they are holy, and have been given the Gift of Holiness to share with you. Join them in gladness, and remove all trace of guilt from their disturbed and tortured minds. Help them to remove the heavy burden of false belief they accepted as their own, and with happy laughter toss it lightly away from them. Press it not like thorns against their brow, nor nail them to it, unredeemed and hopeless. Give each other faith, for faith and hope and mercy are yours to give. The gift is given into the hands that give. Behold your sisters and brothers, and see in them the Gift of the Divine you would receive.

The Time of Resurrection is near. Let us give awakening to each other, and thus share in it, that we may rise as One in Resurrection, and not lie separate in seeming death. Behold the Gift of Freedom that I gave the Holy Spirit for each of my sisters and brothers. And be you free together as you offer to the Holy Spirit this same Gift and, giving It, receive It of Spirit in return for what you gave.

Spirit leads you and me together that we might meet here in this Holy Place of Resurrection, and make the same decision. Free your sisters and brothers here, as you are freed. Give them the selfsame Gift through releasing them from condemnation of any kind, as I have released you and them. See them as perfect as I behold you, and see beyond the mistakes they think are sins within themselves. In the garden of seeming agony and death offer each other Freedom and complete Release from all effects of error. So will we prepare together the way unto the Resurrection of the Divine’s Children, to let them rise again to glad Remembrance of their Creator, Who knows no separation or sin, no death, but only Life eternal.

Together we will disappear into the Presence beyond the veil, not to be lost but found; not to be perceived but known. And, in Knowledge, nothing in the Plan the Divine has established for Awakening will be left undone. This is the journey’s Purpose, without which is the journey meaningless. Here is the Peace of the Divine, given by the Divine to you eternally. Here is the rest and quiet that you seek, the reason for the journey from its beginning. Heaven is the Gift we give each other, the Gratitude we offer to the Children of the Divine in thanks for what they are, and for what their Creator created them to be.

Think carefully how you would perceive the givers of this Gift, for as you perceive them, so will the Gift Itself appear to be. As your sisters and brothers are perceived as either the givers of guilt or of awakening, so will their offering be perceived, and so received. Those perceived as strangers will give pain, because they will be in pain. But the awakened give Joy because they have been healed of pain. Everyone gives as they receive, but each must choose what it will be that they receive. And they will recognize their choice by what they themselves give, and what is given them in return. Nor can anything in Earth or Heaven interfere with their decision.

You have come this far because you have chosen the Purpose of the journey. And no one undertakes to do what they believe is meaningless. What you have had faith in still is faithful, and watches over you in Faith so gentle, yet so strong, that It would lift you far beyond the veil, and place your awareness safely within the sure Protection of your Creator. Here is the only Purpose that gives this world, and the long journey through it, whatever Meaning are in them. Outside of this they are meaningless. You stand together now with your sisters and brothers, but perhaps still without the firm conviction that the world and the journey through it have a Purpose. Yet it is given you to see this Purpose in your holy Friend, and recognize It as your own.