ARCIM

Daily Lesson 187 ~
July 6

I bless the world because I allow myself to be blessed.

No one can give unless they first have. In fact, giving is proof of having. This Course has made this point many times. What seems to make it hard to believe is not the point’s first part. It is clear that you must first possess what you would give. It is the second part on which the world and true perception differ. Having had and given, the world asserts that you have thus lost what you possessed. The Truth maintains that giving can only increase what you truly possess.

How is this possible? For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body’s senses will not perceive it as still being yours. Yet we have learned that things only represent the thoughts that make or create them. And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind. Perhaps the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving. Yet it must return to them who give. Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. It must increase.

Ideas must first belong to you before you can truly give them. If you are to awaken the world, you must first accept awakening for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles awakening brings to everyone touched by it. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is your Treasure House increased.

Protect all things you truly value through the act of sharing – or giving them away – and you will find certainty that you will always have the things thus given. What you may have thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. Yet value not its form. For this will change, and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.

Share, and give gladly, all true things – the Things of Spirit – for you can only gain thereby. The Divine’s Thoughts remain with Their giver and grow in Strength as They are reinforced by giving. These Thoughts extend as They are shared, for They cannot be lost. There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them. There is a giver who retains, another who receives and who will give as well. And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the Thought in form most helpful to them. What is received through true giving will always be with value increased from what was given, as a result of the Increase for all that giving allows.

Always remember that in truth you give only to your Self. Who understands what true giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. And they will recognize the many forms that sacrifice may take. They laugh as well at the appearance of these forms that may still flicker in their mind – as pain and loss, sickness and grief, poverty, starvation and death – because they recognize that sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in their gentle laughter are they healed from the temptation to believe again in these shadows. For they understand that the idea of sacrifice is false, so they withdraw all their creative power from it and all its forms.

Illusion recognized must disappear. Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. Your blessing is on everyone who suffers when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that Sanity dismisses it at once.

Never believe that you can sacrifice in the Divine’s perfect Creation, in Which only Extension and Increase are possible. There is no place for sacrifice in what has any Value. If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen, and correction must be made. Your blessing will correct it. Given first to and accepted by you, it now is yours to give as well. No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has allowed themself to be blessed.

The flowers of forgiveness that your sisters and brothers offer you are laid upon your Altar, with the ones you offer them beside them. Who could fear to behold such lovely Holiness? The great illusion of the fear of the Divine diminishes to nothingness before the Purity that you will see here. Be not afraid to behold. The Blessedness you will see will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect Gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.

Now are we One in Thought, for fear has gone. And here, before the Altar to our one Creator and Its one Thought, we stand together as one Divine Family. Not separate from It Who is our Source, nor distant from one brother or sister who is Part of our one Self Whose Innocence has joined us all as One, we stand in Blessedness and give as we receive. The Name of the Divine is on our lips. And as we see within, we behold the Purity of Heaven shine in our Reflection of our Creator’s Love.

Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. What we have beheld we would extend, for we would see It everywhere. We would behold It shining with the Grace of the Divine in everyone. We would not have It be withheld from anything we perceive. And to ensure this holy Vision is ours, we offer It to everything we perceive. For where we see It, It will be returned to us in form of flowers of forgiveness we can lay upon our Altar, making it a Home for Divine Essence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us Its Holiness as ours.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 17: The Illusion of the Special Relationship

 

2. The Holy Spirit’s Understanding Suffices

You may still think that embracing Holiness is difficult, because you haven’t yet seen how Holiness can be extended to include everyone, and you have learned that It must include everyone to be holy. Concern yourself not with the extension of Holiness, for the nature of miracles is beyond your current understanding. Nor are you the one who works miracles. It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that demonstrates you do not do them. Why should you worry about how the miracle extends to the whole Divine Family, when you do not yet understand the miracle itself? One attribute is no more difficult to understand than is the whole. If miracles are at all, their attributes would also have to be miraculous, being part of them.

There can be a tendency to fragment, and then to be concerned about the truth or realness of a fragmented part of the whole. And this is simply a way of looking away from or avoiding the whole, focusing on what you think you might be better able to understand. And this itself is only another way in which you would still try to keep understanding to yourself. A better and far more helpful way to think of miracles is this: You do not yet understand them, either in part or whole. Yet they have been performed through you. Therefore, your personal understanding cannot be necessary in miracles. Yet it is still impossible to accomplish what you do not understand. And so there must be something in you that does understand.

To the separated ones the miracle cannot seem natural, because what they have done to hurt their mind has made it so unnatural that it does not remember what is natural to it. And even when they are told about it they cannot understand it. The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is perfectly natural to the whole mind. For it is the way the Divine thinks, and what is natural to It is natural to you.

Wholly natural perception will show you instantly that levels or orders of magnitude of difficulty in miracles is quite impossible, for these would involve a contradiction of what miracles mean. And once you understand their Meaning, their attributes can hardly cause you perplexity.

While it is clear that miracles have been performed through you, it is quite apparent that they are never done through you alone. You have succeeded whenever you have reached another mind and joined with it. When two minds join as one, and share one Idea equally, the first link in the awareness of the Divine Family as One has been accomplished. When you have allowed this joining, as the Holy Spirit bids you, and have offered it to Spirit to use as It will, Spirit’s natural Perception of your gift enables It to understand the gift, and you to use Its Understanding on your behalf. It is impossible to convince you of the reality of what has clearly been accomplished through your willingness as long as you believe that you must personally understand it or else it is not real.

You think your lack of understanding diminishes or is a loss to you, and this causes you to be unwilling to fully believe that the miracles that have been accomplished in connection with you are true. Can you really believe that all that has miraculously happened, even what has been beyond your understanding, has not happened? Yet for part of you this is your position. You would have perfect faith in the Holy Spirit, and in the Effects of Its Teaching, if you were not afraid to acknowledge what Spirit has taught you by what It has done through you. For this acknowledgment means that while you may not understand what has happened, you are willing to accept it because it has happened. How can faith in Reality be fully yours while part of you treats It as if It were unreal? And are you really safer in maintaining the unreality of the miracles that you have experienced than you would be in joyously accepting them for what they are, and giving thanks for them even when you don’t understand them?

Honor the Truth that has been given you in the form of miracles, and be glad you do not yet understand It, because your limited understanding would limit Spirit if It relied on your understanding. The miracle is natural to the Divine, and to Spirit Who speaks of and for the Divine. For Spirit’s Task is to translate the miracle into the Knowledge that it represents, but Which has been temporarily forgotten by you. Let Spirit’s Understanding of the miracle be enough for you, and do not turn away from all the Witnesses to the Divine’s Reality that Spirit has given you.

No evidence will convince you of the truth of what you oppose as long as you oppose it. Yet your relationship with Spirit is real, and has been demonstrated. Regard this not with fear or defensiveness or opposition, but with rejoicing. The One you called upon is with you! Bid It welcome, and honor Its Witnesses, Who bring you the glad Tidings that It is present.

It is true, just as you fear, that to acknowledge Spirit is to deny all that you thought you knew. But what you thought you knew was never true. What gain is there to you in clinging to it, and denying the Evidence for Truth? For you have come too near to Truth to relinquish It now, and you will ultimately choose to yield to Its compelling Attraction. You can delay this now, but only a little while. The Host of the Divine has called to you, and you have heard. Never again will you be entirely willing not to listen.

This is a Time of Joy in which your listening will increase, and Peace will grow with its increase. The Power of Holiness and the weakness of attack have both been brought into your awareness. And this has been accomplished in a mind part of which had been firmly convinced that Holiness is weakness and attack is strength. Should not that be a sufficient miracle to teach you that your Teacher comes from beyond you? But remember also that whenever you have listened to Its Interpretation, the results have brought you Joy. Would you prefer the results of your interpretations, considering honestly what they have been? The Divine wills you to have better.

Is it possible for you to perceive with greater charity those the Divine loves with perfect Love? Do not interpret against Its Love for you. For you have many Witnesses that speak of It so clearly that only the spiritually blind and deaf could fail to see and hear Them.

In this Time of Joy determine to embrace what has been given you by the Divine, to use on Its Behalf and on your own. It has Itself reminded you of Itself. Awaken and share the Divine, for that is the reason It has called to you. Its Voice has spoken clearly, and yet your faith in what you have heard may still not be strong, because you have preferred to place still greater faith in what you have made, even if this has failed you, and disastrously. Today let us resolve together to accept the joyful Tidings that failure and disaster are not real, and that Reality is not disaster. Reality is safe and sure and wholly kind to everyone and everything. There is no greater love than to accept this and be glad. For Love asks only that you accept Joy, and will give you everything that brings Happiness.

The Holy Spirit has solved every problem you have ever given to It, and will ever do so. No problem you have ever tried to solve yourself has been successful. Is it not time you brought these facts together and made sense of them? This is the time for the application of the Thoughts that have been given you. For these Thoughts are mighty Forces to be used, and not held idly by. They have already proved Their Power sufficiently for you to place your faith in Them, and not in Their denial. In this Time of Joy invest in Truth, and let It work in Peace. Have faith in what has faith in you. Think what you have really seen and heard, and recognize It. Can you be alone, with Witnesses like these?