Corresponding Text Section

Chapter 19: The Passing of the Dream

7. Through the Circle of Fear and Beyond

You have been advised to bring the darkness to the Light, and guilt to Holiness. And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. Therefore, it is the small part of yourself, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs you to freely offer to It. The rest is fully in the Divine’s Keeping, and needs no Guide. But this wild and delusional thought does need help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the realm it set apart, to tyrannize by madness into obedience and imprisonment.

This is the little part of yourself you think you stole from Heaven. Is it not time to give it back to Heaven? Heaven has not lost it, but you have lost sight of Heaven because you have kept it. Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered realm in which you set it up, surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack, and reinforced by hate. Within its barricades is still a tiny Aspect of the Child of the Divine, complete and holy, serene and unaware of what you think surrounds It. Be you not separate from this Part, for the One Who does surround It has brought Union to you, returning your little offering of darkness to the eternal Light.

How is this done? It is extremely simple, being based on what this little realm really is. The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness can be looked upon only through the body’s eyes. The perception of these eyes by design must be distorted, and the messages they transmit to you who made them to limit your awareness are little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, made by an insane idea of separation, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind that made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as real. For you sent forth these messengers to bring this back to you.

Everything these messages relay to you is quite external. There are no messages this perception brings that speak of what is beyond, for it is not the body that could speak of this. The body’s eyes cannot perceive this. Its senses remain quite unaware of it, and its tongue cannot relay the messages from this other Place. Yet the Divine can bring you there, if you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror, trusting It not to abandon you and leave you there. For it is not Spirit’s Purpose to frighten you, but that is the purpose of what you have adopted as your own. You are severely tempted to abandon Spirit at the outside ring of fear. But It would lead you safely through, and far beyond.

The circle of fear lies just below the level of the world that the body looks upon, and which seems to be the entire foundation on which the world is based. Here are all the illusions, all the twisted thoughts, all the mad attacks, the feelings of betrayal, fury, and retribution that were made to keep the guilt in place, so that the world could rise from it, and keep it hidden. The shadow of this circle rises to the surface of this world, enough to hold its most external manifestations in darkness, and to bring despair and loneliness to it, and keep it joyless. But its intensity is veiled by its heavy coverings, and kept apart from what was made to keep it hidden. The body cannot perceive this, for the body arose from this for the protection of this circle of fear, which must always depend on keeping it not seen. The body’s eyes will never perceive it. Yet they will look upon what it dictates.

The body will remain guilt’s messenger, and will act as it directs, as long as you believe that guilt is real. For the seeming reality of guilt is the illusion that seems to make guilt heavy and opaque, impenetrable, and a real foundation for the ego’s thought system. Its thinness and transparency are not apparent until you see the Light beyond it. And then you see guilt as a fragile veil before the Light. This heavy-seeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like rock, is like a bank of low, dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the Sun. Its impenetrable appearance is entirely an illusion. It gives way softly to the mountain tops that rise above it, and has no power at all to hold back anyone willing to rise above it to see the Sun. It is not strong enough to stop a button’s fall, or to hold a feather aloft.

Nothing can rest upon guilt, for it is merely an illusion of a foundation. Try only to touch it and it disappears. Attempt to grasp it and your hands hold nothing. Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to imagine an entire world rising. A solid mountain range, a lake, a city all arise in your imagination, and from these clouds the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that it is all there. Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real, and forms appear and shift from loveliness to the grotesque. And back and forth they go, as long as you would play the children’s game of “let’s pretend.”

Yet however long you play a game, and regardless of how much imagination you bring to it, you do not confuse it with the actual world, nor seek to make it real. So should it be with the dark clouds of guilt, no more impenetrable and no more substantial than the items of a game. You will not bruise yourself against them in traveling through them. Let your Guide teach you their unsubstantial nature as It leads you through and beyond them. For beyond them is a world of Light, whereon illusions cast no shadows. Their shadows fall upon the world beneath them, still further from the Light. But from them to the Light their shadows cannot fall.

This world of Light, this Circle of Brightness, is the Real World, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here the world that appears to be outside you is perceived anew, without the shadow of guilt upon it. Here you know you are forgiven, for here you have forgiven everyone and everything. Here is the new perception, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed pure in the waters of forgiveness, and cleansed of every “evil” thought you ever laid upon the world or yourself. Here there is no attack upon the Children of the Divine, and so here you are welcomed. Here is your Innocence, waiting to clothe you and protect you, and make you ready for the Final Step in the journey inward. Here are the dark and heavy garments of guilt removed, and gently replaced by Peace and Joy.

Yet even forgiveness is not the end. Forgiveness does make lovely again, but it does not create. It is the source of healing, but it is only the Messenger of Love and not Its Source. To this real world you are led through forgiveness so that the Divine Itself can take the Final Step unhindered. For here does nothing interfere with Love, letting It be Itself. A step beyond this Holy Place of forgiveness, a step still further inward, but one you cannot take yourself, transports you to something completely different. Here is the Source of Light: not perceived, forgiven, or transformed, but merely known.

This Course will lead to Knowledge, but Knowledge Itself is still beyond the scope of our curriculum. Nor is there any need for us to try to speak of what must forever be beyond words. We need remember only that whoever attains the Real World, beyond which learning cannot go, will go beyond it, but in a different way than learning. Where learning ends, there the Divine begins, for learning ends before It Who is Complete where It begins, and where there is no end.

It is not for us to dwell on what cannot be accomplished by us. There is too much to learn. The readiness for Knowledge still must be attained by us. Love is not learned. Its Meaning is in Itself. And learning ends when you have understood all that Love is not. That alone is the interference to Reality, and what needs to be undone. Love is not learned because you have always known It, and It you. Learning is useless in the Presence of your Creator, Whose Acknowledgment of you, and yours of It, so far transcends all learning that everything you ever learned becomes meaningless, replaced forever by the Knowledge of Love and Its one Meaning.

Your holy relationship has been uprooted from the world of shadows, and its previous unholy purpose has been safely brought through the barriers of guilt, washed pure with forgiveness, and set shining and firmly rooted in the world of Light. From there Light calls to you to follow the Way it teaches, lifted high above the darkness, and gently placed before the Gate of Heaven. The Holy Instant in which you are united is simply a Messenger of Love, sent from beyond forgiveness to remind you of all that is beyond it. Yet it is through forgiveness that It will be remembered.

And when the Memory of the Divine has come to you in the Holy Place of forgiveness, you will remember nothing else. And memory will be as useless as learning, for your only Purpose will be creating. Yet this you cannot know until every perception has been cleansed and purified, and finally removed forever. Forgiveness removes only the unreal, lifting the shadows from the world, and carrying you, safe and sure within its gentleness, to the bright world of new and clean perception. There is your purpose now. And it is there that Peace awaits you.