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Chapter 19: The Passing of the Dream

5. Being Transported Beyond

There is nothing outside you. That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is in that Realization that the Realm of Heaven is restored to you. For the Divine created only Heaven, and It did not depart from It, or leave It separate from Itself. The Realm of Heaven is the Dwelling Place of the Children of the Divine, who left not their Creator, and dwell not apart from It. Heaven is not a place or a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the Knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within.

What could the Divine give but Knowledge of Itself? What else is there to give or receive? The belief that you could give or receive something else, something outside yourself, has cost you the awareness of Heaven, and the temporary loss of Knowledge of your Identity. And you have done a stranger thing than you yet realize. You have displaced your guilt to your body from your mind. Yet a body cannot be guilty, for it can do nothing of itself. Those who think they hate their bodies deceive themselves. They secretly believe that they hate their minds, for guilt has entered into them, and in guilt they would remain separate, which they cannot do.

Minds are joined; bodies cannot be. Only by assigning to the mind the properties of the body does separation seem to be possible. And it is mind that seems to be fragmented and private and alone in a body. Its guilt, which keeps it separate, is projected to the body, which suffers and dies because it is attacked in order to hold the separation in the mind, and keep it from knowing its Unity with all minds. Yet in reality the mind cannot attack. But it can make fantasies, and direct the body to attempt to act them out.

It is never what the body does that seems to satisfy the mind, because the mind alone determines its own satisfaction. Yet unless the wounded mind believes that the body is actually acting out its fantasies, it will attack the body by increasing the projection of its guilt upon it. The mind is clearly delusional in this. Being mind, it cannot attack. But it maintains it can, and uses what it does to hurt the body to prove it can. While the mind cannot attack, it can deceive itself. And this is all it does when it believes it has hurt the body or itself. It can mis-project its guilt, but it will not get rid of it through this mis-projection. And though it clearly can misperceive the function of the body, it cannot change the body’s function from what the Holy Spirit establishes it to be.

The body was not created by Love and therefore it was not created at all, which is clear because it is not eternal. But Love does not condemn the body, and can use it lovingly, respecting what the Children of the Divine have made, and using it toward awakening them from illusions. Would you not have the instruments of separation reinterpreted as means for awakening, and used for purposes of Love? Would you not welcome and support the shift from fantasies of attack and punishment to release from them?

Your perception of the body can clearly be sick, but project this not upon the body. For your wish to make destructive what cannot destroy or be destroyed – the mind – can have no real effect at all. And what the Divine created is only what It would have it be, being Its Will. You cannot make the Divine’s Will destructive. You can make fantasies, in which your will conflicts with Its, but that is all.

It is insane to use the body as the scapegoat for guilt, directing its behavior and then blaming it for what you wished it to do. It is impossible to act out fantasies and make them true. For what you wish to make true are still only fantasies, and being of your mind they have nothing to do with what the body does. The body does not dream of fantasies, and they only make it a liability where it could be an asset. For fantasies have made your body your “foe” – weak, vulnerable, and capable of “letting you down” – and therefore, senselessly, “worthy” of the disdain that you invest in it.

How has this served you? You have identified with this thing you think has betrayed you, the focus and instrument of your aggression, and the perceived source of your guilt. You have done this to a thing that has no meaning in itself, proclaiming it to be the dwelling place of the Children of the Divine, and turning it against them. This is what you have tried to make as Host of the Divine. But neither the Divine nor its holy Children can enter an abode that harbors anything unlike Love.

This thing the separated ones made to serve as the projection for their guilt stands between you and other minds. Your minds are joined, but you do not identify with their Union. You perceive yourself as locked in a separate prison, remote and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as of being reached. You hate the prison that you made, and would destroy it. Yet you do not want to release yourself from it, leaving it unharmed without your guilt upon it. But only thus can you be released.

The symbol of separation is not your home. The place you set aside to house your guilt is not a prison, but an illusion of yourself. And it is this that promises your release.

The body is a limit imposed on the universal Communication that is an eternal Property of Mind. But true Communication is internal. Mind reaches to Itself. It is not made up of different parts that reach each other. It does not go out. Within Itself It has no limits, and there is nothing outside It. It encompasses Everything. It encompasses you entirely: you within It, and It within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever.

The body seems to be outside you, and to surround you, shutting you off from others, and keeping you apart from them, and them from you. It is not there. There is no barrier between the Divine and Its Children, nor can Its Children be separated from each other except in illusion. Dwelling in a body is not their reality, though they believe it is. Yet this belief could only be true if the Divine were wrong. To make this possible the Divine would have had to create one Part of Its Creation differently, and to have separated Itself from Its Children. It would have had to create different things, and to establish different levels and orders of Reality, only some of which were Love. Yet Love must be forever like Itself, changeless forever, forever One, and forever without alternative. And so It is.

You cannot put a barrier around yourself because the Divine placed none between Itself and you. Your hand can stretch out and reach to Heaven. You whose hands are joined have begun to reach beyond the body – but not outside yourselves – to reach your shared Identity together. Could this be outside you, where the Divine is not? Is the Divine a body? Did It create you as It is not, and where It cannot be? You are surrounded only by It. What limits can there be on you whom the Limitless encompasses?

All individuals have experienced what can be called a sense of being transported beyond themselves. This feeling of liberation far exceeds the dream of freedom sometimes experienced in special relationships. It is a sense of actual release from limitations. If you consider what this “transporting” really entails, you will realize that it is a sudden unawareness of the body, and a joining of yourself and something else, in which your mind enlarges to encompass it. The “something else” becomes part of you as you unite with it. And both become whole as neither is perceived as separate.

What really happens is that you have temporarily let go of the delusion of a limited awareness, and lost your fear of Union. The Love that instantly replaces your delusion and fear extends to what has helped you to release yourself, and unites you with it. And, while this lasts, you are certain of your true Identity, and would not limit It. You have let go of fear and embraced Peace, asking no questions of Reality, but merely accepting It. You have accepted this instead of the body, and have let yourself be One with something beyond it, simply by not letting your mind be limited by the body.

This experience can occur regardless of the physical distance that seems to be between you and what you join with, of your respective positions in space, and of your differences in size and seeming quality. In this experience time is not relevant. The experience can occur with something past, present, or anticipated. The “something” can be anything and anywhere: a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory, or even a more general idea without specific reference. But in every case you join it without reservation because you love it and would be with it. And so you rush to meet it, letting your limits melt away, suspending all the “laws” you have believed that your body obeys, and gently setting them aside.

There is no violence at all in this release. The body is not attacked, but merely properly perceived. It does not limit you, but only because you would not have it do so. You are not really “lifted out” of it; it simply cannot contain you. You go where you would be, gaining, not losing, your sense of Self. In these instants of release from physical restrictions you experience much of what happens in the Holy Instant: the lifting of the barriers of time and space, the sudden experience of Peace and Joy, and, above all, the lack of awareness of the body and of the questioning whether or not all this is possible. It is possible because you want it, and because it is in accord with Divine Will.

The sudden expansion of the sense of Self that takes place with your desire for it is the irresistible appeal the Holy Instant holds. It calls to you to be your Self within Its safe Embrace. Here are the laws of limitation lifted for you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and Freedom. Come to this Place of Refuge where you can be yourself in Peace, not through destruction, not through a “breaking out,” but merely by a quiet “joining in.” For Peace will join you there, simply because you have been willing to let go the limits you have placed on Love, and joined It where It is, and where It led you, in answer to Its gentle Call to be at peace.