ARCIM

Daily Lesson 158 ~
June 7

Today I learn to give as I receive.

What has been given you? The Knowledge that you are a whole mind, in Mind and purely Mind, innocent forever, wholly free of fear because you were created out of Love. Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. This was given you as Knowledge that you cannot lose. It was given as well to every created being, for by that Knowledge only does every created being live and have its being.

You have received all this. Everyone in this world has received It as well. It is not this Knowledge that you give, for that is what your creation gave. All this cannot be learned.

What, then, are you to learn to give today? Our lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the Text. Experience of Eternity and Heaven cannot be shared directly in the way that vision and miracles can. The Revelation that the Creator and Its Children are One will come in time to every mind. Yet is that time – determined by the mind itself – not taught.

The time is set already. It appears to be quite arbitrary. Yet there is no step that anyone takes along the Path to Freedom merely by chance. Each step has already been taken and completed by them, although they appear not yet to have embarked on it in time. For time only seems to go in one direction. We undertake a journey that is over. Yet it seems to have a future still unknown.

Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a Plan behind appearances that does not change. The Script is written. The time that experience will come to end your doubting has been set. For we just perceive the journey from the point at which it ended, perceiving it from there as it extends back in time, imagining that we make it once again, reviewing mentally what has gone by.

Teachers of the Divine do not give direct experience to their students, because they did not learn it. The Revelation that the Creator and Its Children are One will reveal Itself to each one at Its appointed time. But vision is a true teacher’s gift. This they can give directly to others because they learned it. Divine Essence has a Vision that It can give to anyone who asks, so Its Knowledge cannot be lost. The Creator’s Will and that of Divine Essence are joined in Knowledge. This is a Vision that the Holy Spirit sees because the Mind of Divine Essence beholds It as well.

Here is the world of doubt and shadows brought to the Intangible to be no more. Here is a quiet Place within the world made holy by forgiveness and by Love. Here are all contradictions reconciled, for here the journey ends. Experience of Eternity and Heaven, unlearned, untaught, unseen, is merely there. This is beyond our goal, for It transcends what needs to be accomplished.

Our concern is with the Vision of Divine Essence. This we can attain. This Vision has one Law: It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Child the Divine created. It beholds a Light beyond the body, an Idea beyond what can be touched, a Purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of separation and sin. It perceives no separation or sin. And it beholds everyone, in every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the Light it sees.

This Vision can be taught, and must be taught by all who would achieve It, so that they can learn It, and give and receive It truly. It requires only the recognition that the world cannot give anything that faintly can compare with this in value, nor set up a goal that does not merely disappear when this Vision has been seen. And this teaching you give today. Perceive no one as a body. Greet everyone as the Children of the Divine they are, acknowledging that they are One with you in holiness.

Thus do you know that their illusions and yours are forgiven, for Divine Essence has Vision that has Power to see beyond them all. In Its Forgiveness they are gone. Unseen by this One they merely disappear, because a Vision of the Holiness that is beyond them comes to take their place. It matters not what form these illusions took, nor how enormous they appeared to be, nor who seemed to be hurt by them. They are no more, and all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and therefore never done at all. This is the Atonement.

Thus do you learn to give as you receive. And thus the Vision of Divine Essence sees you as well.

This lesson is not difficult to learn if you remember that in your sisters and brothers you only perceive yourself. If they are lost in illusion or separation, so must you be. If you see the Light in them, then your illusions and errors, without regard for form or magnitude, have been forgiven by yourself. Each sister and brother you meet today provides another opportunity to let the Vision of Divine Essence shine on you, and offer you the Peace of the Divine.

It matters not when revelation comes, for that is not of time. Yet time has still one gift to give in which true Knowledge is reflected in a way so accurate Its Image shares Its unseen Holiness, and Its Likeness shines with Its immortal Love. We practice seeing with the Vision of Divine Essence today. And by the holy gifts we give, Divine Essence’s Vision sees us as well.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 13: From Guilt to the Promise of Heaven

 

8. The Happy Dreams of Love

Sit quietly and observe the world you look upon, and remind yourself: “The Real World is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk separately and alone. There are no stores where people buy an endless collection of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and then grows dim. There is no loss. Everything there shines with Light, and shines forever.”

Attention must be shifted from the world you look upon, for perception of it is costing you vision. You cannot reside in both worlds, for each of them involves a different kind of perceiving, which in turn depends on what you cherish. Perception of each world is possible because the focus of attention of one denies perception of the other. Only one is true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the extent to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is not the same, because their real attraction to you is unequal. You do not really want the world you look upon, for it has disappointed you since time began. The structures that have been built have never truly sheltered you. The pathways and roads that been made have led you nowhere, and no settlement ever formed has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Everything made in this world has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as it was made.

This old aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give that power to the world you made, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the Way that leads away from it into another world. Yet the Real World has the Power to touch you even while you still dwell in illusion, because you do love it. And what you call with Love will come to you. Love always answers, being unable to deny any true call for help, unable not to hear the cries of pain that rise to It from every part of this strange world you made but do not truly want. The only effort you need make to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is willingness to learn that the world you made is false.

You have been wrong about the world because you have judged yourself. From such a twisted reference point, what could you clearly perceive? All perception starts with the perceiver, who decides what is true and what is false. And when that decision is wrong, they do not see. You who would judge Reality cannot see It, for whenever judgment enters, Reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight, because though what is denied is there, It is not recognized.

Divine Essence is still there, although you have forgotten It and therefore know It not. Its Being does not depend upon your recognition. It lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world It holds for you in Love.

Everyone in this distracted world has seen some glimpses of the Real World about them. But while they still lay value on their own private world, they will deny the vision of the Real World, maintaining that they love what they do not love, and following not the Way that Love points out. Love leads so gladly! And as you follow It, you will rejoice that you have found Its Company, and learned of It the joyful journey home.

You wait only for yourself. It is your will to give this sad world over, and exchange your errors for the Peace of the Divine. And Divine Essence will always offer you the Will of the Divine in Recognition that you share It with It.

It is the Divine’s Will that Its Children reside only in It, and that nothing else come near to them, because there is nothing else. Their being is as safe from pain as the Divine Itself, Who watches over them in everything. The Real World surrounding them shines with Love, because the Divine placed them in Itself where pain is not, and Love surrounds them without end. Disturbance of their Peace can never be. With perfect Sanity they behold Love, for It is all around them and within them.

The Children of the Divine must shift their focus from the world of pain the Instant they perceive the Arms of Love around them. And from this Point of Safety they see quietly around them, and recognize that the Real World is One with them.

The Peace of the Divine passes or goes beyond your understanding only in the past. Yet It is here, and you can understand It now. The Divine loves Its Children forever, and Its Children return their Creator’s Love forever. The Real World is the Way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true, and wholly yours. For all else you have loaned yourself in time, and will fade. But this one thing is always yours, being the Gift of the Divine unto Its Children. Your one reality was given you, and by It the Divine created you One with It.

You will first dream of Peace, and then awaken to It. Your first exchange of what you made for what you truly want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of Love. In these rest your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams, where all perception is. Knowledge needs no correction. Yet the happy dreams of Love lead unto seeing, which invites Knowledge to come again into Its Own. In Spirit’s happy Dreams you perceive nothing fearful, and because of this they are the welcome that you offer Knowledge. Love waits on welcome, not on time, and the Real World is simply your welcome of what always was. Therefore the Call of Joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you never lost. Praise, then, the Creator for the perfect Sanity of Its most holy Children.