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Chapter 27: The Transition to Holy Ground

1. The Song of Union and Joy

Sacrifice is a key idea in the “dynamics” of the ego. It is the pivot upon which all compromise, all desperate attempts to strike a bargain, and all conflicts achieve a seeming balance. It is the symbol of the central theme that someone must lose in order for anyone to gain. Its focus on the body is apparent, for it is always an attempt to limit loss.

The body itself is believed to be a sacrifice, a giving up of power in the name of saving just a little for yourself. To perceive a brother or sister in another body, separate from yours, is the expression of a wish to perceive just a little part of them, and sacrifice the rest. Look at the world, and you will perceive nothing connected to anything beyond itself. All seeming entities can come a little nearer, or go a little farther off, but cannot join as one.

The world you look upon is based on sacrifice of Oneness as the outcome of separation. It is a picture of a complete disunity and utter lack of joining. Around each entity is built a barricade so apparently solid that it seems as if what is inside can never reach without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away within the barricade. Thus each part of this world must sacrifice the other parts to keep itself discrete. For if they joined, each one would seemingly lose its own identity, while by their separation are their little selves maintained. The little that the body barricades off becomes the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. And all the rest must lose this little part, remaining incomplete to keep its own identity intact.

In this perception of your identity the loss of the body would be a sacrifice indeed. And perception of bodies becomes the sign that sacrifice has been limited, and as a result that something still remains for you alone. And for this little to belong to you, limits are placed on everything perceived outside yourself, just as they are on everything you think is yours. For giving and receiving in truth are the same. And to accept the limits of a body is to impose these limits on each sister and brother and each discreet thing you perceive. For you must perceive them as you perceive yourself.

The body is a loss, and can be made to sacrifice. And while you look upon your sisters and brothers as bodies, apart from you and separate inside their barricades, you are demanding sacrifice of them and yourself. What greater sacrifice could be demanded than that the Divine’s Children perceive themselves without their Creator? And that their Creator be without Its Children? Yet every sacrifice demands that they be separate and without the other. The Memory of the Divine must be denied if sacrifice of any kind is asked of anyone.

What witness to the Wholeness of the Divine’s Children is perceived within a world of separate bodies, however much they witness to Truth? This Wholeness is invisible in such a world. Nor can Its Song of Union and of Joy be heard at all. Yet is it given the Divine’s Children to cause the world’s chatter to recede before the Song of their Wholeness, and Vision of their Wholeness replace what the body’s eyes show. Those who would see the Witnesses to Truth instead of witnesses to illusion merely ask that they might see a purpose in the world that gives it sense and makes it meaningful.

Without your unique part in the Plan of Awakening has this world no meaning for you. Yet can the world become a Storehouse as rich and limitless as Heaven Itself through the Gifts placed there to hold. No instant passes here in which your sisters and brothers’ holiness cannot be seen, to add a limitless Supply to every meager scrap and tiny crumb of happiness that you allot yourself. You can lose sight of Oneness, but can not make sacrifice of Its Reality. Nor can you lose what you would sacrifice, or keep the Holy Spirit from Its Task of showing you that neither Reality nor your holiness, which are One, have been lost.

Hear, then, the Song your sisters and brothers sing to you. And let the world recede, accepting the quiet Rest their witness offers on behalf of Peace. But judge them not, or you will hear no Song of Liberation for yourself, nor perceive what it is given them to witness to, that you may see It and rejoice with them. Make not their holiness a sacrifice to your belief in unholiness. You seem to sacrifice your Innocence with theirs each time you judge, and die each time you perceive in them anything deserving death. Yet every Holy Instant you can be born anew, and given Life again. Their holiness gives Life to you, who cannot die because your Innocence is known to the Divine, and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the Light in you be blotted out because you see It not.

You who would attempt to limit Life, and make your eyes and ears bear witness to the sacrifice of the Divine and of Its holy Children, think not that you have power to make of them what the Divine willed not they be. In Heaven the Divine’s Children are not barricaded in bodies, or sacrificed in solitude to fear and guilt. And as they are in Heaven, so must they be Everywhere eternally. They are the same forever, born anew each Holy Instant, untouched by time, and far beyond the reach of any limit of Life or sacrifice of death. For neither Life nor death did they make, and only one was given them, by One Who knows Its Gifts can never suffer sacrifice or loss.

The Divine’s Justice rests in Gentleness upon Its Children, and keeps them truly safe from all injustices the world would lay upon them. Could it be that you could make their belief in separation reality, and sacrifice their Creator’s Will for them? Condemn them not by perceiving them within the crumbling barricade where they look upon themselves. It is your function to ensure they know that the Door of Release is open, that they may come forth to shine on you, and give you back the Gift of Freedom by receiving It of you. What is the Holy Spirit’s Function but to release the holy Children of the Divine from the imprisonment they made to keep themselves from Justice? Could your function be a task apart and different from Its Own?