ARCIM

Daily Lesson 183 ~
July 2

I call upon the Divine’s Nature and Name, and on my own.

The Divine’s Nature and Name are holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon Its Nature and Name is simply to call upon your own. A parent gives their child their nature and name, and thus identifies the child with them. Its sisters and brothers also receive this nature and name, and thus are they united in a bond that gives them a sense of shared identity.

Your Creator’s Nature and Name remind you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have forgotten it. The Divine’s Name, Which is Its Nature, cannot be heard without response, nor spoken without a Resonance in the mind that calls you to remember. Speak Its Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness.

Repeat the Divine’s Name and all the world responds by laying down illusions. Every dream the world holds dear has suddenly gone by, and where each one seemed to stand you find a Star, a miracle of Grace. The sick arise, healed of their sickly thoughts. The blind can see, the deaf can hear. The sorrowful cast off their mourning, and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world.

Call upon the Nature and Name of the Divine and little names have lost their meaning. Every temptation to mis-project becomes merely a nameless and unwanted thing before the Divine’s Nature and Name. Repeat Its Name and see how easily you will forget the names of all the gods and idols you valued, for they have lost the names you gave them. They become anonymous and valueless to you, although you stood before them worshipfully prior to letting the Name of the Divine replace their little names.

Repeat the Name of the Divine and call upon your holy Self, Whose Nature and Name are Its. Repeat Its Name and all the tiny, nameless things on Earth slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Nature and Name of the Divine cannot mistake separation for Grace, the nameless for the Name, or bodies for the holy Children of the Divine. And should you join a brother or sister as you sit with them in silence, and repeat the Divine’s Name along with them within your quiet minds, you have established there an Altar that reaches to the Divine Itself and to Its Creation.

Practice only this today: repeat the Divine’s Name, as the Aspects of Its Nature that call to you, slowly again and still again. Become oblivious to every name but Its. Hear nothing else. Let all your thoughts become anchored on this. No other words we use except at the beginning, when we say today’s idea only once. And then the Divine’s Nature and Name become our only thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of everything that we desire to behold, of everything that we would call our own.

Thus do we give an invitation that can never be refused. And the Divine will come and answer this invitation Itself. It cannot hear the little prayers of those who call on It with names of idols cherished by the world, for these do not exist, and those who call on them cannot reach It thus. It cannot hear requests that It be not Itself, or that Its Children receive another name than Its. Repeat Its Name and you acknowledge It as sole Creator of Reality. And you acknowledge also that Its Children are Part of It, creating in Its Nature and Name.

Sit silently and let the Divine’s Nature and Name become the all-encompassing Idea that holds your mind completely. Let all thoughts be still except this One. And to all other thoughts respond with this One, and hear the Divine’s Name replace the thousand little names you gave your thoughts when you didn’t realize that there is just one Nature of and Name for all there is, and all that there will ever be.

Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience the Gifts of Grace. You can release yourself from all bondage of the world, and give the world the same Release you found. You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering. You can accept today the part you play in its awakening and your own as well, and both can be accomplished perfectly.

Turn to the Nature and Name of the Divine for your Release, and It is given you. No prayer but this is necessary, for It holds them all within It. Words are insignificant and all requests unneeded when the Divine’s Children call on their Creator’s Nature and Name. Their Creator’s Thoughts become their own. Their call is their request for all that their Creator has given, is giving still, and will forever give. They call on their Creator to let all things they thought they made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Nature and Name of the Divine become the Evaluation of the worth of such things.

All little things are silent. Little sounds are soundless now. The little things of Earth have disappeared. The Universe consists only of the Children of the Divine who call upon their Creator. And their Creator’s Voice gives Answer in their Creator’s holy Nature and Name. In this eternal, still Relationship, in which Communication far transcends all words, and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly convey, is Peace eternal. In our Creator’s Nature and Name we would experience this Peace today. And in Its Nature and Name It shall be given us.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 16: The Holy Instant

 

8. Removing the Interference in Communication

The Holy Instant does not replace the need for learning, for the Holy Spirit must remain with you as your Teacher until the Holy Instant has extended far beyond time. For a teaching assignment such as Spirit’s, It must use everything in this world for your Release. It must side with every sign or token of your willingness to learn of It what Truth must be. It is swift to utilize whatever you offer It on behalf of this.

Spirit’s Concern and Care for you are limitless. In the face of your fear of forgiveness – an idea entirely at odds with the ego’s thought system, and your fear of which Spirit perceives as clearly as It knows forgiveness is Release – It will teach you to remember always that forgiveness is not loss, but awakening. And that with complete forgiveness, in which you recognize that there is nothing to forgive, you know you are forgiven completely.

Hear the Voice of the Divine gladly, and learn of It that you have no need of special relationships at all. You merely seek in them what you have thrown away—perfect Love. And in attempting to find yourself through them you will never learn the Value of what you have cast aside but still desire with all your heart.

Let us join together in making the Holy Instant all that there is, by desiring that It be all that there is. The Divine’s Children have such great need of your willingness to strive for this that you cannot conceive of need so great. Behold the only need that the Divine and Its Children share, and the only need they will to meet together. You are joined in this. The will of your creations calls to you, to share your will with them. Turn, then, in Peace, from guilt to the Divine and them.

Relate only with what is forever with you, and what you are always with. The Creator is aware of the loneliness of Its Children. Embrace the awareness of your Completion, but do not seek to restore It to yourself. Trust the Love of your Awakener, Divine Essence, with your awakening. Divine Essence will accomplish this in you, for the Accomplishment comes from our Creator, Who can only succeed. Accept your sense of failure as nothing more than a mistake about who you are. For the holy Host of the Divine is beyond failure, and everything that It wills must be fulfilled. You are forever in a Relationship so holy that It calls to everyone to release themselves from loneliness, and join you in Its Love. And where you are in reality must everyone seek, and find you there.

Think only an instant on this: the Divine gave Its Family to you to ensure your perfect creation. This was Its Gift, for, as It gave Itself wholly to you, It also gave you Its Creation. Everything that was ever created is yours. Your Relationships are with the whole of the infinite and eternal Universe. And this Universe, being of the Divine, is far beyond the insignificant sum of all the separate bodies you perceive. For in Reality all Its Parts are joined in the Divine through Divine Essence, where they become like to their Creator. For Divine Essence knows only of Oneness with Its Creator, Who is Its One Relationship, in which It gives as Its Creator gives to It.

The Holy Spirit is the Divine’s Intent to free you of what It does not understand. And because of the Source of the Intent, It will succeed. The Holy Spirit asks you to respond as the Divine does, for It would teach you what you do not understand. The Divine wills to respond to every need, whatever form it takes. And so It has established and kept this Channel open to receive Its Communication to you, and yours to It. The Divine does not understand your problem in communication, for It does not share it with you. It is only you who believe that this problem is understandable.

The Holy Spirit knows that the problem of separation is not understandable in truth, and yet It understands it because Children of the Divine have made it. In Spirit alone is the awareness of what the Divine, being what It is, cannot know (and therefore cannot be known), and what you, being who you are, do not understand. It is Spirit’s holy Function to accept them both, and, by removing every element of disagreement, to join them into One. It will do this because this is Its Function. Leave, then, what seems to you to be impossible to It Who knows it must be possible, because it is the Will of the Divine. And let Spirit, Whose Teaching is only of the Divine, teach you the only Meaning of relationships. For the Divine Itself created the only Relationship that has Meaning, which is Its Relationship with Its Creation.

As much as the ego would limit your perception of your sisters and brothers to the body, so would the Holy Spirit release your vision, and let you see the Great Rays shining through your sisters and brothers, so unlimited that They reach to the Divine. It is this shift in vision that is accomplished in the Holy Instant. Yet it is needful for you to learn just what this shift entails, so you will become willing to allow the Holy Instant to be your only experience of time. Given this willingness, the Holy Instant will not leave you, for It is the only time there is in reality. And once you have accepted It as the only perception that you want, It is translated into Knowledge by the Part that the Divine Itself plays in the Atonement, for it is the only step in Atonement that the Divine understands. Therefore, in this there will be no delay when you are ready for this Step. The Divine is ready now, and in each Holy Instant you are approaching readiness.

Our task is simply to continue, with as little distraction as possible, the necessary process of observing with perfect honesty the interference in your communication with your sisters and brothers, and in your Communication with the Divine, and perceiving this interference exactly as it is. For it is impossible to recognize as entirely without enjoyment what you think you want. The body was made as the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of the separation. And both are nothing more than attempts to limit communication, and thereby to make it impossible. For communication must be unlimited in order to have Meaning, and deprived of Meaning it will not satisfy you completely. Yet it remains the only means by which you can establish real Relationships.

True Relationships have no limits, having been established by the Divine. In the Holy Instant, where the Great Rays replace the body in awareness, the Recognition of Relationships without limits is given you. But to see this it is necessary to give up every use the ego has for the body, and to accept the fact that the ego has no purpose that you would share with it. For the ego would limit everyone to a body for its purposes, and while you think it has a purpose you will choose to utilize the means by which it tries to turn its purpose into accomplishment. Its purpose will never be accomplished. Yet you have surely recognized that the ego, whose goals are altogether unattainable, will still strive for them with all its might, and will do so with the strength that you have given it.

Yet it is impossible to divide your Strength between Heaven and hell, the Divine and the ego, and realize your Power to create, which is the only Purpose for which Power is given you. For perfect Love always gives limitless, undivided increase. Limits are demanded by the ego, representing its demands to make little and ineffectual. Limit your perception of a brother or sister to their body, which you will do as long as you would not release them from this perception, and you have denied their gift to you. Their body cannot give it. And seek it not through yours. But your minds are already continuous, and their Union need only be accepted for the loneliness in you and in the world to be gone.

When you let the Holy Spirit tell you of the Love of the Divine for you, and the need that your creations have to be with you forever, you will experience the Attraction of the Eternal. For no one can hear Spirit speak of this and long remain willing to linger here. For it is your will to be in Heaven, where you are complete and quiet in such sure and loving Relationships that any limits are impossible. Would you not exchange your little relationships for this? For the body is limited and therefore little, and only those whom you would perceive without the limits that the ego would impose on them can offer you the Gift of Freedom.

You have no conception of the limits you have placed on your perception, and no idea of all the Loveliness that you will see when you let these limits go. Remember only this: the attraction of guilt opposes the Attraction of the Divine. The Attraction of the Divine remains unlimited for you, but, because your Power, being the Divine’s, is as great as Its, you have the ability to turn away from Love. What you invest in guilt you withdraw from the Divine. And your sight grows weak and dim and limited, for you have attempted to separate the Creator from Its Creation, and limit Their Communication. Seek not the Atonement through further means of separation. And limit not your perception of the Divine’s Children to what interferes with their Release, and what the Holy Spirit must undo to set them free. For their belief in limits is what has limited them.

When the body ceases to attract you, and when you place no value on it as a means of getting anything, then there will be no interference in true Communication. And your Thoughts will be as free as the Divine’s.