Corresponding Text Section

Chapter 19: The Passing of the Dream

10. The Smile of Heaven

The attraction of guilt is found in sin, not error. Sin will be repeated because of this attraction. Fear can become so acute that the “sin” is denied the acting out, but while guilt remains attractive the mind will suffer, and will not let the idea of sin go. For guilt still calls to such a mind, and the mind hears it and yearns for it, making it a willing captive to sin’s sick appeal. Sin is the idea of an evil that cannot be corrected, and that will be forever desirable. As an essential part of what the ego thinks you are, as long as you associate with the ego you will always want sin. And only an avenger with a mind unlike your own could stamp it out through fear.

The ego does not think it possible that Love, not fear, is really called upon by the belief in sin, and always answers. For the ego brings fear to sin through demanding punishment. But punishment is only another form of protecting guilt, for what is deserving punishment must have been really done. Punishment is always the ego’s great preserver of sin, treating it with respect, and honoring its enormity. What must be punished must be true, and what is true must be perpetual, and will be repeated endlessly. For what you think is real you want, and will not let it go until you transform your mind.

An error, on the other hand, is not attractive. What you see clearly as a mistake you want corrected. A “sin” can be repeated over and over, with obviously distressing results, but without the loss of its appeal. And suddenly you change its status from a sin to a mistake. Now you will not repeat it. You will merely stop and let it go, unless the guilt remains. For then you will simply change the form of sin, granting theoretically that it was an error, but keeping it uncorrectable because of the guilt. This is not really a change in your perception, for it is not error but the guilt of sin that calls for punishment rather than correction.

The Holy Spirit cannot punish sin. Mistakes It recognizes, and will correct them all, as the Divine entrusted It to do. But sin It knows not because it is unknowable, nor does It recognize any mistakes that cannot be corrected. For a mistake that cannot be corrected is meaningless to Spirit. Mistakes call for correction, and for nothing else. What seems to call for punishment must call for nothing. Yet every mistake must be a call for Love.

What, then, is sin? What could it be but a mistake you would keep hidden, a call for help that you would keep unheard, and thus unanswered? The Holy Spirit clearly recognizes that the Children of the Divine can make mistakes in the dimension of time and space. On this point you share Its Recognition. Yet you do not yet share Its Recognition of the difference between time and Eternity. For when Correction is completed, time has disappeared into Eternity.

Time is like a descending spiral that seems to travel down from an infinite, unbroken dimension that is Eternity, moving downward along a different dimension, but in reality in no way breaking or interfering with Eternity’s smooth Continuity. Within the spiral of time it seems as if the Dimension of Eternity must have been broken, but at the threshold between the dimensions, Eternity’s Wholeness is apparent. Everything perceived from the spiral of time is misperceived. But as you approach the Threshold of Eternity you realize that Eternity was not affected at all by the drop into the dimension of time. Yet from this downward dimension of time, Eternity seems discontinuous. This is merely an error in perception that can be easily corrected in the mind, although the body’s eyes will perceive no change.

As you awaken, the mind corrects many things that the eyes perceive, and you respond not to the eyes’ illusions but to the mind’s corrections. You believed that the Dimension of Eternity was broken by time. As you shift to different aspects of the spiral of time, your perception of Eternity will be different though not yet true. Yet in your mind is One Who knows that Eternity is unbroken and forever changeless.

This One can teach you how to perceive time differently, and to see beyond it. But not while you believe in sin. Acknowledging error, yes, for this can be corrected by the mind. But sin is the belief that your perception is unchangeable, and that the mind must accept as true what it is told through your faulty perception. The mind is judged insane by the world if it does not obey what it is told through sin’s perspective. The only Power that could transform perception thus appears to be kept impotent, held to the body by the fear of changed perception, which the mind’s Teacher, Who is One with it, would bring.

When you are tempted to believe that sin is real, remember this: If sin is real, then both the Divine and you are not. If Creation is Extension, the Creator must have extended Itself, and it is impossible that what is Part of It is totally unlike the Rest. If sin is real, the Divine must be at war within Itself. It must be split and torn between good and evil, partly sane and partially insane. For It must have created what wills to destroy It, and has the power to do so. Is it not easier to believe that you have been mistaken than to believe in this?

While you believe that your and your sisters and brothers’ reality is bounded by bodies, you will believe in sin. While you believe that bodies can unite, you will find guilt attractive, and believe that sin has value. For the belief that bodies limit the mind leads to a perception of the world in which the proof of separation seems to be everywhere. And the Divine and Its Creation seem to be split apart and overthrown. If sin were real it would forever be beyond the hope of healing. For the reality of sin would prove that what the Divine created holy could not prevail against sin, nor remain Itself when attacked by the power of sin. Sin is thus perceived as mightier than the Divine, before which the Divine Itself must bow, and offer Its Creation to its conqueror. Is this idea humbleness or madness?

The idea of sin in its madness asserts that there is a power beyond the Divine’s, capable of making another will that could attack Its Will and overcome It, and give Its Children a will apart from Its, and stronger. And each Part of the Divine’s fragmented Creation would have a different will opposed to Its, and in eternal opposition to It and to each other. Indeed, this is the belief that is the foundation of the world that can be looked upon.

Your holy relationship has as its Purpose now the goal of proving that this mad idea is impossible. Heaven has smiled upon your relationship, and the belief in sin has been uprooted in Its Smile of Love. You perceive sin still because you do not yet realize that its foundation has gone. But its source has been removed, and so it can be cherished only a little while yet before it vanishes. Only the habit of looking for sin still remains. And yet you are learning to perceive with Heaven’s Smile upon your lips, and Heaven’s Blessing on your sight.

You will not continue to perceive sin for long. For in the new perception the mind corrects sin whenever and wherever it seems to be perceived, and it becomes invisible because it is gone. And then errors are quickly acknowledged, and quickly given to Correction to be healed, not hidden. You will be healed of sin and all its ravages the Instant that you give it no power over yourself or others. And you will help each other overcome mistakes by joyously releasing one another from the belief in sin.

In the Holy Instant you will see the Smile of Heaven shining on both of you. And you will shine upon each other in glad acknowledgment of the Grace that has been given you. For sin will not prevail against a union that Heaven has smiled upon.