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Chapter 15: Dissolving Dissociation

8. From Self-Destruction to the Holy Meeting Place

What do you want? Light or darkness, Knowledge or ignorance are yours, but not what is opposite. Opposites must be brought together, not kept apart. For their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by Union, as you are. In Union everything that is not real must disappear, for Union is Truth. As darkness disappears in Light, so ignorance fades away when Knowledge dawns. Perception is the medium by which ignorance is brought to Knowledge. But the perception must be without deceit, for otherwise it becomes the messenger of ignorance, rather than a helper in the search for Truth.

Seeking Truth is just the honest searching out of everything that interferes with Truth. Truth is, and can be neither lost, nor sought, nor found. It is present wherever you are, being within you. But It can be recognized or unrecognized by you, real or false to you. If you hide Truth, It becomes unreal to you because you hid It, and surrounded It with fear. Under each cornerstone of fear on which the unknowing have erected their nonsensical system of belief, the Truth remains, apparently hidden. Yet they cannot know this, for, by hiding Truth in fear, they have no reason to believe that the more they clearly perceive fear, the less they perceive it, and the clearer what it conceals becomes.

It is not possible to convince the unknowing that they know. From their point of view it is not true that they know. Yet it is true, because the Divine knows it. These are clearly opposite viewpoints of what the “unknowing” are. To the Divine, unknowing is impossible. It is therefore not a point of view at all, but merely a belief in something that does not exist. It is only this belief that those who believe they are unknowing have, and by it they are wrong about themselves. They have defined themselves as they were not created. Their creation was not a point of view, but rather a Certainty. Uncertainty brought to Certainty does not retain any conviction of reality.

You must have noticed that the emphasis has been on bringing what is undesirable to the desirable, and what you do not want to what you do want. If you consider what dissociation is, you will realize that awakening must come to you this way. Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking, whereby two systems of belief that cannot coexist are both maintained in the mind by keeping them apart. The mind that dissociates unconsciously recognizes that if the two belief systems were brought together, their joint acceptance would become impossible. But if they are kept in darkness from each other, their separation seems to keep them both alive, and equal in their reality. Their joining thus becomes the source of fear, for if they meet then acceptance must be withdrawn from one of them.

You cannot have both the ego’s and the Holy Spirit’s thought systems, for each denies the other. When they are kept apart, this fact is lost from sight, for each in a separate place can be endowed with firm belief. Bring them together, and the fact of their complete incompatibility is instantly apparent. One will go because the other is perceived in the same place. Light cannot enter darkness when a mind believes in darkness and will not let it go (similar in physical terms to refusing to open one’s eyes). Truth does not struggle against ignorance, and Love does not attack fear. What needs no protection does not defend Itself.

Defense was made by the separated ones. The Divine knows it not. The Holy Spirit uses defenses on behalf of Truth, but only because you made them against It. Spirit’s Perception of them, according to Its Purpose, merely changes defenses into a call for what you have attacked, with what you have used to attack. Defenses, like everything you made, must be gently turned to your own good, translated by Spirit from means of self-destruction to Means of Release from insanity and Preservation of Sanity. Spirit’s Task is mighty, but the Power of the Divine is with It. Therefore, to Spirit this Task is so easy that It was accomplished the Instant It was given It for you.

Do not delay yourself in your return to Peace by wondering how Spirit can fulfill what the Divine has given It to do. Leave that to It Who knows! You are not asked to do such mighty tasks yourself, though your awakening will be a mighty Accomplishment indeed. Now you are merely asked to do the little that Spirit suggests you do as each hour passes, trusting It only to the small extent of believing that, if Spirit asks it, you can do it with Its Help. You will see how easily all that It asks can be accomplished.

Spirit asks of you only this: bring to It every secret you have locked away from It. Open every door to It, and bid It enter the darkness and lighten it away. At your request Spirit enters gladly. It brings the Light to darkness if you make the darkness open to It. But what you hide It cannot see. For It sees for you, and unless you see with Spirit, It cannot see through you.

The Vision of Divine Essence is not for Spirit alone, but for It with you and all our sisters and brothers. Bring, therefore, all your dark and secret thoughts to Spirit, and see them with It. You hold the darkness and Spirit holds the Light. They cannot coexist when you and Spirit together see them. Its Interpretation must prevail, and It will give This to you as you join your perception to Its. Joining with Spirit in seeing is the way in which you learn to share with It the Interpretation of perception that leads to Knowledge.

Seeing can only be done in Union. Sharing perception with the Holy Spirit, Whom the Divine has given you, teaches you how to recognize what you perceive. It is the recognition that nothing you perceive without Spirit means anything. Perceiving with Spirit will show you that all Meaning, including yours, comes not from double vision, or trying to perceive two diametrically-opposed worlds, but from the gentle joining of everything into one Meaning, one Emotion, and one Purpose. The Divine has one Purpose, which It shares with you. The single Vision that the Holy Spirit offers you will bring this Oneness to your mind with Clarity and Brightness so intense you could not wish, for all the world, not to accept what the Divine would have you have. Behold your will, accepting it as the Divine’s, with all Its Love as yours. All honor to you through Spirit, and through It unto the Divine.

In darkness the Glory the Divine gave you and the Power that It bestowed upon Its guiltless Creation have been obscured. The Glory and the Power seem hidden in every darkened place shrouded in fear and guilt, and in the dark denial of Innocence. Behind the dark doors that you have closed lies nothing, because there is nothing that can hide the Gifts of the Divine. It is the closed dark doors that interfere with Recognition of the Power of the Divine that shines in you. Banish not Power from your mind, but let all that would hide your Glory be brought to the Interpretation of the Holy Spirit, and there be undone.

Whom Spirit would awaken to Glory is awakened to It. Spirit has promised the Creator that, through It, you would be released from littleness to Glory. It is wholly faithful to what It promised the Divine, for It shared with the Divine the Promise that was given to It to share with you. It shares It still, for you. Everything that promises otherwise, great or small, however much or little valued, Spirit will replace with the one Promise given unto It to lay upon the Altar to your Creator and Its Creation. No altar stands to the Divine without Its Children. And everything brought there that is not equally worthy of both will be replaced by Gifts wholly acceptable to the Creator and Its perfect Creation. Just as you cannot offer guilt to the Divine, you cannot offer it to Its Children. For they are joined, and gifts to one are offered to the other.

You seem not to know the Divine because you have forgotten Its Altar. And yet you do know the Divine, and also this. All this is safe within you where the Holy Spirit shines. It shines not in separation nor division, but in the Meeting Place where the Divine, united with Its Children, speaks to Its Children through Its Voice. Communication between what cannot be divided cannot cease. The holy Meeting Place of the Creator and Its Creation is in the Holy Spirit, and in you. All interference in the Communication that the Divine Itself wills with Its Children is quite impossible in this holy Meeting Place. Unbroken and uninterrupted, Love flows constantly between the Creator and the Creation, as both would have It be. And so It is.

Do not let your mind wander through darkened corridors, away from Light’s Center. You may choose to lead yourself astray, but you can only be brought together with your sisters and brothers and your Creator by the Guide appointed for you. It will surely lead you to where the Divine and Its Children await your recognition. They are joined in giving you the Gift of Oneness, before which all separation vanishes. Unite with what you are. You can only join with Reality. The Divine’s Glory and Its Children’s belong to you in Truth. They have no opposite, and nothing else can you bestow upon yourself or others.

There is no substitute for Truth. And Truth will make this plain to you as you are brought into the Place where you will meet with Truth. And there you must be led through gentle Understanding that can lead you nowhere else. Where the Divine is, there are you, and where you are the Divine is. Such is the Truth. Nothing can change into unknowing the Knowledge given you by the Divine. Everything the Divine created knows Its Creator. For this is how Creation is accomplished by the Creator, and by Its Creation. In the holy Meeting Place are joined the Divine and Its Children, and the creations of Its Children with them together. There is one Link that joins them all together, holding them in the Oneness from which Creation extends.

The Link with which the Creator joins Itself to those It gives the Power to create like It can never be dissolved. Heaven Itself is Union with all of Creation and with Its one Creator. And Heaven remains the Will of the Divine for you. Lay no gifts other than This upon your altar, for nothing can coexist beside It. Here your offerings are brought together with the Gifts of the Divine, and only what is worthy of the Divine will be accepted by Its Children, for whom They were intended. To whom the Divine gives Itself, It is given. Your little gifts will vanish on the Altar where It has placed Its Own Gift.