Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 23: The Grace of the Holy Relationship
3. The Time to Decide
The opposite of illusion is not disillusionment, but Truth. Only to the ego, to which Truth is meaningless, do illusion and disillusionment appear to be the only alternatives, and different from each other. In truth they are the same. Both bring the same amount of misery, though each one seems to be the way to lose the misery the other brings. Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. And in these dark and heavy garments are those who seek illusions covered, and hidden from the Joy of Truth.
Truth is the opposite of illusions because It offers Joy. What else but Joy could be the opposite of misery? To leave one kind of misery and seek another is hardly a release. To exchange illusions is to make no change. The search for Joy in misery is senseless, for how could Joy be found there? All that is possible in the dark world of misery is to select some aspects out of it, perceive them as different, and define the difference as joy. Yet to perceive a difference where none exists will surely fail to make a difference. Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death to their believers, and this is the cost of the belief in separation. The form in which illusions are accepted is irrelevant. No form of misery can be confused with Joy by Reason.
Joy is eternal. You can be sure indeed that any seeming happiness that does not last is really fear. Joy does not turn to sorrow, for the Eternal cannot change. But sorrow can be turned to Joy, for time gives way to the Eternal. Only the Timeless must remain unchanged. But everything in time can change with time. Yet if the change be real and not imagined, illusions must give way to Truth, and not to other dreams that are merely equally unreal, which would be no difference. Reason will tell you that the only way to release yourself from misery is to recognize it, and to choose its true opposite.
All things truly joyful are the same and all things that bring misery are the same, but they are different from each other in every way, in every instance, and without exception. To believe that one exception can exist is to confuse what is the same with what is different. One illusion cherished and defended against the Truth makes all Truth meaningless and all illusions seem real in the mind of the one who wants the illusion to be true. Such is the power of belief. It cannot compromise, for if it does it becomes compromised and therefore unbelievable.
Belief in innocence becomes faith in illusion if the belief excludes one living thing, and holds it out apart from its forgiveness. Both Reason and the ego will tell you this. But what they make of it is not the same. The ego will assure you that because of this it is impossible for you to perceive anyone as entirely guiltless, and that if doing so is the only means by which release from guilt can be attained, then the belief in unworthiness and guilt must be eternal.
Yet Reason sees this another way. For Reason sees the source of an idea as what makes it true or false. This must be so if the idea is like its source. Therefore Reason says that if release from guilt was given to the Holy Spirit as Its Purpose by the Divine, to Whom nothing It wills can be impossible, then the Means for the Attainment of this Purpose are more than possible. They must be there, and you must have Them.
This is an essential period in your journey of awakening, for here the separation of you and the ego must be made complete. For if you have the Means to let the Holy Spirit’s Purpose be accomplished in you, then They can be used. And through Their use will you gain faith in Them. Yet to the ego these Means, and the Purpose They would accomplish, must be impossible, and no one undertakes to do what holds no hope of ever being accomplished.
You know that what your Creator wills is possible. But what you made up in your mind in madness believes it is not so. Now must you choose between yourself and this illusion of yourself. Not both, but only one. There is no point in trying to avoid this one decision. It must be made. Faith and belief can be on the side of illusion or Truth, but Reason tells you that misery lies only on one side, and Joy is only on the other.
Be faithful now to each other in the holy relationship in which you are joined. For you who are truly the same will not decide alone, or differently. You give each other either Life or death. Either you are each other’s awakener or judge, offering each other sanctuary or condemnation. Likewise, this Course will be embraced entirely or not at all. For it is either wholly true or entirely false, and therefore cannot be only partially believed. And you will either be released from misery entirely or not at all.
Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can pause indefinitely, waiting uncertainly to choose between the Joy of Heaven and the misery of hell. For until you choose Heaven, you are in misery and hell. This Course has said repeatedly that illusions cannot be made true. This also means that there is no Part of Heaven that you can take and weave into illusions. Nor is there even one illusion that can enter Heaven with you.
An awakener cannot be a judge, nor mercy condemnation. And vision cannot harm, but only bless. Spirit, Whose Function is to awaken, will awaken. How It will do this is beyond your understanding, but when It will do it must be your choice. For time you made, and time you can therefore direct. You are no more a prisoner to time than to the world you made.
Let us closely observe the entire illusion that what you made has power to imprison its maker. This is the same belief that caused the separation. It is the meaningless idea that thoughts can leave the thinker’s mind, be different from it, and in opposition to it. If this were true, thoughts would not be the mind’s extensions but its enemies, an idea that makes no sense. And here we observe again another form of the same fundamental illusion we have observed many times before. Only if it were possible for the Children of the Divine to leave their Creator’s Mind, make themselves different and oppose Its Will, would it be possible that the pseudo-self they made, and all that this self made, could imprison and control them. Observe the great mis-projection, not with fear, but only with the compassionate decision that it must be healed.
Nothing you made has any power over you unless you still would be apart from your Creator, and with a will opposed to Its. For only if you believe that the Divine’s Children could be in opposition to their Creator does it seem possible that what you made could be in opposition to you. In this belief you would condemn the Divine’s Joy to misery, and make the Divine different from you. Yet all the misery you made has been your own. Are you not glad to learn that this misery is not real? Is it not welcome news to hear that not one of the illusions you made has replaced the Truth?
Only your thoughts of unholiness and unworthiness and your belief in illusions have been impossible in reality. Awakening must be possible. It is impossible to look upon your awakener as your adversary and recognize them. Yet it is possible to recognize your awakener for what they are, if the Divine would have it so. What the Divine has given to your holy relationship is there. For what It gave the Holy Spirit to give to you, Spirit has given. Is it not time to behold the awakener who has been given you? And would you not exchange, with gratitude and gladness, the function of a judge and executioner that you gave them for the function they have here in truth? Receive of them what the Divine has given them for you, not what you tried to give.
Beyond the bodies that you interposed between yourselves, and shining in the golden Light that reaches you from the bright endless Circle that extends forever, is your holy relationship, beloved of the Divine, and holy as Itself. How still it rests, in time and yet beyond, immortal yet on Earth. How great the Power that is in it. Time waits upon its will, and Earth will be as your holy relationship would have it be. Here is no separate will, nor the desire that anything be separate. Its will has no exceptions, and what it wills is true. Every illusion brought to its forgiveness is gently seen beyond, and disappears. For at its center Divine Essence has been born anew, to light Its Home with Vision that sees beyond the world.
Would you have this holy Home be yours as well? No misery is here, but only Joy. All you need do to dwell in quiet here with Divine Essence is to share Its Vision. Quickly and gladly is Its Vision given to anyone who is just willing to perceive their sisters and brothers as they are in Truth. And if you would be released entirely from all effects of mistakes, then no one can remain beyond this willingness.
Attempt no longer to have partial forgiveness for yourself or for your sisters and brothers. Think no more that you can reach Heaven while a single thought of imperfection still tempts you to remain in misery. Heaven is the Home of perfect Creation. And the Divine created It for you, and for all Its Children. Behold your holy sisters and brothers, innocent and perfect as yourself, and let the vision of them lead you there.
When you come to the place where the branch in the road is quite apparent, you cannot go straight ahead. You must go one way or the other. For now if you attempt to go straight ahead you will go nowhere. The whole purpose of coming this far is to decide which branch you will take from here on. The way you came no longer matters. It can no longer serve.
Everyone who reaches this far will make the right decision. But they can delay in doing so. And there is no part of the journey that seems more hopeless and futile than standing where the road branches, and not deciding which way to go. It is only the first few steps along the right way that seem hard, because you have chosen, but you still think you can go back and make another choice. This is not so. A choice made with the Power of Heaven to uphold it cannot be undone. Your way is decided. As you acknowledge this, you will remember everything you need to know.
