ARCIM

Daily Lesson 251 ~
September 8

What Are Separation and Sin?

Lesson 251: My only need is of the Truth.

What Are Separation and Sin? (Lessons 251-260)

The belief in separation and sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of Truth. And being mad, it perceives illusions where the Truth should be, and where It really is.

The belief in separation and sin, or something apart from Divine Perfection, gave the body eyes, for what is there the Perfect and Innocent would perceive? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know. And Truth can only be filled with Knowledge, and with nothing else.

The body is the instrument the mind made in its efforts to deceive itself. The body’s purpose is to strive. Yet can the goal of striving change. And now the body serves a different aim for striving. What it seeks for now is chosen by the Aim the mind has taken as replacement for the goal of self-deception. Truth can be its aim instead of illusions. The senses then will seek instead for witnesses to what is true.

The belief in separation and sin is the home of all illusions, which merely stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue. They are the “proof” that what has no reality is real. Separation and sin “prove” that the Divine’s Children are irreparably flawed, Timelessness must have an end, and eternal Life must die. And the Divine Itself has lost the Children It loves, with only corruption to complete Itself, Its Will forever overcome by destruction, Love slain by hate, and Peace to be no more.

An insane person’s dreams are frightening, and separation and sin appear indeed to terrify. And yet what they look upon is merely a childish game. The Children of the Divine may play that they have become bodies, prey to evil and to guilt, with only a little life that ends in death. But all the while their Creator shines on them and loves them with Its everlasting Love, which their pretenses cannot change at all.

How long, oh Children of Perfection, will you maintain the game of separation and sin? Shall we not put away these hurtful children’s toys? How soon will you be ready to come Home? Perhaps today? There is no separation or sin in Reality. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, oh holy Children of the Divine, how long?

 

What are separation and sin?

Lesson 251
My only need is of the Truth.

 

I have sought for many things, and found only despair. Now do I seek only one thing, for in that One is all I need, and only what I need. All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want. My only need I did not recognize.

But now I see that I need only Truth. In that, all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone. Now have I everything that I could need. Now have I everything that I could want. And now at last I find myself at peace.

 

And for your Peace, our Creator, we give thanks. What we denied ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 25: Undoing the Spell of Specialness

 

4. Forgiving the Divine

Forgiveness is the end of specialness. Only illusions can be forgiven, and then they disappear. Forgiveness is release from all illusions, and that is why it is impossible only to partly forgive. Anyone who clings to even one illusion cannot see themself as sinless, for they hold to themself one error as lovely still. And so they call the error “unforgivable,” and make it into sin. How can they then give their forgiveness wholly, when they would not receive it fully for themself? For it is sure they would receive it wholly the instant that they gave it so. And thus their secret guilt would disappear, forgiven by themself.

A sin, or unforgivable error, is made from whatever form of specialness is cherished. Inviolate it stands, strongly defended with all the puny “might” of littleness against the Will of the Divine. And thus it stands against yourself. It is your enemy, not the Divine’s. So does the error seem to split you off from the Divine, and, as the protector of specialness, make you separate from your Creator. For in specialness you would protect what the Divine created not. And yet this idol that seems to give you power has taken it away. For you have given your sisters and brothers’ birthright of Freedom and Strength to specialness, leaving them alone and unforgiven, and yourself in darkness beside them, each in misery before the idol that can save you not.

Yet it is not you that is so vulnerable and open to attack that just a word, a little whisper that you do not like, a circumstance that suits you not, or an event that you did not anticipate, upsets your world and hurls it into chaos. Truth is not frail. Illusions leave It perfectly unmoved and undisturbed. But specialness is not the Truth in you. Specialness can be thrown off balance by anything. What rests on nothing never can be stable. However large and overblown it seems to be, it still must rock and turn and whirl about and tumble into turmoil with every breeze.

Whatever is without a true foundation is not secure. Would the Divine have left Its Children in such a state, where Safety has no meaning? No, Its Children are safe, resting in It. It is your specialness that believes it is attacked by everything that walks and breathes, or creeps or crawls, or even seems to exist at all. Nothing is safe from its attack, and so it believes that it is safe from nothing. It will perpetually be unforgiving, for that is what it is: a secret vow that what the Divine wants for you will never be, and that you will oppose Its Will forever. Nor is it possible that the Children of the Divine can ever remember their Oneness with their Creator while specialness stands like a flaming sword of death between them, and seems to make them enemies.

The Divine asks for your forgiveness. It would have no separation, like an alien will, rise between what It wills for you and what you will. What you and your Creator will is the same in Truth, for neither wills specialness. How could the Creator or Its Children will the death of Love Itself? Likewise are They powerless to make attack upon illusions, for They are not bodies. As One Mind Their One Will waits for all illusions willingly to be brought to It, and left behind. Awakening never attacks, not even death. And the Divine Itself, Who knows that death is not your will, must say, “Thy will be done,” as long as you think that death is your will.

Forgive the great Creator of the Universe, the Source of Life, Love, Holiness and Perfection, for your illusions of specialness. Here is the hell that you, in a dream of madness, temporarily chose to be your home. The Divine chose not this for you. Ask not that It enter this. The way to illusion is barred to Love and to awakening. Yet as you release your sisters and brothers from their nightmare of hell, you have forgiven It Whose Will it is that you rest forever in the Arms of Peace, in perfect Safety, and without the heat and malice of one thought of specialness to mar your rest. Forgive the Holy One the specialness It could not give, and so you made instead.

The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of Loveliness they do not see. Freedom and Peace and Joy stand there beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and awaken from their dream of death. Yet they hear nothing. They are lost in dreams of specialness. They hate the Call that would awaken them. And they curse the Divine because It did not make their dream reality. Curse the Divine and die as you will, but not by It Who made not death, but only in the dream. Open your eyes a little and see the awakener that the Divine gave to you in the holy relationship, that you might behold your brothers and sisters and give them back their birthright. For this birthright is yours.

Those imprisoned by specialness will yet be free. Such is the Will of the Divine, and of Its Children. Would the Divine condemn Itself to nightmares of hell? And do you will that this be done unto your Awakener? The Divine calls to you from your sisters and brothers to join Its Will to save you both from the illusion of hell. The Divine asks your mercy on Its Children, and on Itself. Deny them not. They ask of you only that your true will be done. They seek your love that you may love yourself. Love not your specialness instead of them. Forgive your Creator that it was not Its Will that you be lost in the dream of specialness.