ARCIM

Daily Lesson 138 ~
May 18

Heaven is the decision I must make.

In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between. We think that all things have an opposite, and that we must choose what we want. In this perspective, if Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for contradiction is the way we make what we perceive and what we think is real.

Creation knows no opposite. But in a world of illusions opposites demonstrate “realness.” It is this strange perception of the Truth that makes the choice of Heaven seem to be the same as the relinquishment of hell. It is not really thus. Yet what is true in the Divine’s Creation cannot enter here until It is reflected in some form the world can understand. Truth cannot come where It could only be perceived with fear, for fear is the illusion that Truth comes to undo. Opposition makes the Truth unwelcome, and It cannot come where It is not welcome.

Choice is the obvious release from what appears as opposites, and offers the possibility to welcome Truth rather than fear It. Decision lets one goal – perceived as one of two or more conflicting goals – become the aim of effort and expenditure of time. Without decision time is merely a waste, and effort dissipated. It is spent for nothing in return. And time goes by without results. There is no sense of gain, for nothing is learned and nothing accomplished.

You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting you when there is really only one. And even this one only seems to be a choice. Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would induce. There is only one thing to choose. And when that One is chosen, you will perceive It was no choice at all, for Truth is true and nothing else is true, or real. There is no opposite to choose instead. There is no contradiction to the Truth.

Choosing depends on learning, but the Truth cannot be learned. It can only be recognized. In Recognition Its acceptance rests, and as It is accepted It is known. But Knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this Course. Ours are teaching goals to be attained through learning what they are, what they offer you, and how to reach them. Decisions are the outcome of your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the Truth of what you are and what your needs must be.

In this overwhelmingly complicated world, Heaven appears to take the form of choice rather than merely being what It is. Of all the choices you have tried to make this is the simplest and most definitive, the prototype of all the rest, the one that settles all decisions. If you could decide all the rest, this one would remain unsolved. But when you solve this one the others are resolved with it, for all decisions merely conceal this one by taking different forms. Here is the final and the only choice, in which is Truth accepted or denied.

So we begin today considering the choice that time was repurposed by Spirit to help us make. Such is time’s holy Purpose now, transformed from the purpose originally given it. That purpose was for time to be a means for demonstrating that nightmares are real, hope turned to despair, and life in the end overcome by death. For in that perspective of time does death alone resolve opposites, because death is believed to end all conflict and opposition. And thus “salvation” must be seen as death, for life is seen as conflict. To resolve the conflict is to end your life as well.

These mad beliefs can gain unconscious hold of great intensity, and grip the mind with terror and anxiety so strong that it believes itself to be unable to relinquish its ideas about its own protection. It believes that it must be saved from awakening, threatened to be safe, and magically armored against truth. And these decisions are made outside of awareness to keep them safely undisturbed, apart from question, reason, and doubt.

Heaven must be chosen consciously and in full awareness. The choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately perceived and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding to be assessed again, this time with Heaven’s Help, and all mistakes in judgment that the mind made before are open to correction as the Truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized.

The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the unconscious fear of hell, when this fear is raised from its protective shield of unawareness and brought to Light. Who can decide between what is unrecognized? Yet who can fail to make a choice between alternatives that are perceived clearly, and when only one is seen as valuable, the other as an entirely worthless thing, a merely imagined source of guilt and pain? Who hesitates to make a choice like this? And shall we hesitate to choose today?

We make the choice for Heaven as we wake, and spend five minutes making sure that we have made the one decision that is sane. We recognize that we make a conscious choice between what has true being and what has nothing but an appearance of realness. Its pseudo-being, brought to what is real, is flimsy and transparent in the Light. It holds no terror now, for what was made enormous, vengeful and pitiless with hate demands obscurity for fear to be invested there. Now it is recognized as but a foolish, trivial mistake.

Before we close our eyes in sleep tonight we reaffirm the choice that we have made each hour in between. And now we give the last five minutes of our waking day to the decision with which we awoke.

As every hour passes, we declare our choice again in a brief quiet time devoted to maintaining sanity. And finally we close the day with this, acknowledging we choose only what we truly want:

 

“Heaven is the decision I must make.

I make it now and am at peace in my choice,

because Heaven is the only thing I truly want.”

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 11: The Dissolution of the Ego

 

8. Experiences, Beliefs, and Perceptions

It is impossible not to believe what you perceive, but it is equally impossible to perceive what you do not believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until beliefs are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe you do perceive. That is what I meant when I said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe,” for those who believe in the Resurrection – the Atonement – will see It and experience It. The Resurrection is the complete triumph of Divine Essence over the ego, not by attack, but by Transcendence. For Divine Essence does rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends with all Children of the Divine to the Creator and Its Realm.

Would you release yourself from all dreams and ascend to the Creator? Would you free your sisters and brothers along with yourself? Would you join in the Resurrection or endlessly repeat the crucifixion? For these questions are all the same, and are answered together.

There has been much confusion about what perception means, because the same word is used both for the perceiver’s awareness – an inner state – and for the interpretation of what this awareness brings—apparently an outer state. Yet in this world you cannot be aware without interpretation, and what you perceive is your interpretation.

This Course is perfectly clear. When it becomes unclear to you it is because you are interpreting against it, and therefore do not believe it. And if belief determines perception, then if you do not believe this Course you will not perceive what it means and therefore will not accept it.

Yet different experiences lead to different beliefs, and with them different perceptions. For perceptions are learned beliefs, and experience does teach. I am leading you to a new kind of experience that you will become less and less willing to deny. Learning that is of Divine Essence is easy, for to perceive with Divine Essence involves no strain at all because it is perfect Vision, or seeing. Its Perceptions are your natural Awareness, and it is only distortions that you introduce into awareness that tire you. Let Spirit in you interpret for you in order to gain the Vision of Divine Essence, and do not try to limit what you perceive by narrow or little beliefs that are unworthy of the Divine’s Children. For until Divine Essence comes into Its Own, the Children of the Divine will perceive themselves as creator-less.

I join with you in the Resurrection and the Life. We live in each other because we live in the Divine. And everyone lives in us, as we live in everyone. Can you, then, perceive unworthiness in a brother or sister and not perceive it in yourself? And can you perceive it in yourself and not perceive it in the Divine? Believe in the Resurrection because It has been accomplished, which means that It has been accomplished in you. This is as true now as it will ever be, for the Resurrection is the Will of the Divine, Which knows no time and no exceptions. But make no exceptions yourself, or you will not perceive what has been accomplished for you. For we ascend unto the Creator together, as It was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, for such is the Nature of the Divine’s Children as their Creator created them.

Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of the Divine’s Children, including that which they give to the gods and idols they worship or honor instead of to the Divine. For they place themselves at the altar of their god, whether it be the god they made or the Divine Who created them. That is why their imprisonment is as complete as their freedom, for they will obey only the god they accept. The god of abandonment and martyrdom (crucifixion) demands that its worshippers fear and attack, and they obey. In its name they fear and attack themselves, believing that the Power of the Child of the Divine is born of sacrifice and pain. The Divine – Who created the Atonement and Its Resurrection of all who believed they chose death instead of Life – demands nothing, for It does not will to take away. It does not require obedience, for obedience implies submission to an alien will. The Divine would only have you learn your own true will, One with Its, and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and surrender, but in the Gladness of Freedom.

Resurrection must inspire your allegiance gladly because It is the symbol of Joy. Its whole compelling Power rests in the fact that It represents what you truly want to experience and be. The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts and humiliates and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but It is offered you through the Grace of the Divine. And you can accept this by Its Grace, for the Divine is gracious to Its Children, accepting them without question as Its Own.

What, then, is your own? The Creator has given you Everything, and It Itself is yours as Everything. Cherish in Its Gift of Resurrection all that has been truly given you, for otherwise you will forget, and delay awakening in the Divine, safely surrounded by what is yours forever.

You will find Peace when you have removed the nails of judgment from the hands and feet of the Divine’s Child, and taken the last thorn of resentment from Its forehead. The Love of the Divine surrounds Its Children whom the god of abandonment and martyrdom would condemn. Teach not that my death led to nothing. Teach rather that death is impossible by demonstrating that the Resurrection lives in you. For the undoing of the abandonment and martyrdom of the Divine’s Children is the Work of the Atonement, in which everyone has a part of equal value.

The Divine does not judge Its Children, all of whom are blameless. Having given Itself to Its Children eternally, how could it be otherwise? Through your mistaken beliefs you have nailed yourself to a cross of judgment and placed a crown of thorns of resentment upon your own head. Yet you cannot crucify the Divine’s Child, your holy Self, for the Will of the Divine cannot die. Its Children have been freed from their own abandonment and martyrdom, and whom the Divine has given eternal Life cannot be assigned to death. The nightmare of abandonment and martyrdom still lies heavy on the eyes of those who dream this world, but what you look upon in dreams is not Reality. While you perceive that the Child of the Divine can be hurt or threatened in any way, you are asleep. And as long as you believe that you can hurt or threaten yourself or another, you are only having nightmares.

You who are beginning to awaken are still aware of nightmares, having not yet forgotten them. The forgetting of nightmares and the Awareness of Divine Essence come with the awakening of others to share your awakening. The Call to awaken is within you, and your awakening is your response to the Call. If I live in the Resurrection and the Resurrection lives in you, you are awakened. But you must see the works I do through you or you will not perceive that I have done them unto you. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do through you, or you will not accept what I can do for you. For it is done already, and unless you give all that you have received, you will not know that your Awakener lives and that you have awakened with It. Awakening is recognized only by sharing it.

The Divine’s Children are awakened. Bring only this awareness to the Divine Family, and you will have a part in the Atonement as valuable as mine. For your part must be like mine if you learn it of me. If you believe that your part is limited, you are limiting mine. Miracles are free of all levels and orders of magnitude of difficulty because all of the Divine’s Children are of equal Value, and their Equality is their Oneness. The whole Power of the Divine is in every Part of It, and nothing contradictory to Its Will is either great or small. What does not exist has no size and no measure. To the Divine all things that are in accord with Its Will are possible. And to Divine Essence it is given to be like the Creator.