Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 22: True Reason and the Final Question
6. True Reason Sets Free
True Reason cannot perceive flaw, but does perceive errors, and leads to their correction. It does not value them, but does value their correction. Reason will also tell you that when you think you sin, or fall short of being worthy, you merely call for help. But if you will not accept the help you call for, then you will not believe that it is yours to give to others in need. And so you will not give it, thus maintaining the belief in falling short of worthiness. For uncorrected error of any kind hides from your awareness the Power that is in you to make correction. If Reason can correct, but you do not allow It to do so, then you deny It to yourself and to your sisters and brothers. And if they share this same belief, then you both will think that you are bound to unworthiness.
You could spare both yourself and them this thought, for Reason will always make correction in both of you. Correction cannot be accepted or refused by you without this choice including your sisters and brothers. The belief in separation would maintain that you can choose for yourself alone. But Reason tells you that you cannot look upon your brother or sister or yourself as unworthy or guilty and still perceive the other as worthy and innocent. Who can look upon themself as guilty, and perceive an innocent world? And who can look upon a flawed and sinful world, and perceive themself apart from it? The ego would maintain that you can be separate from what you perceive. But Reason tells you that this perception must be wrong.
If you are joined in Spirit, how could it be that you have private thoughts? And how could thoughts that enter into what only seems to be your separate mind have no effect at all on what is your true mind? If minds are joined, this is impossible. No one can think only for themself, just as the Divine thinks not without Its Children. Only if that which gives rise to thought was a body could this be. Nor could one mind think privately and only for itself unless the body were the mind. For only bodies can be separate, and therefore unreal. The home of unreality and therefore delusion cannot be the home of Reason. Yet it is easy to leave the home of delusion if you see Reason. You do not leave delusion by physically going somewhere else. You leave it simply by accepting Reason where delusion was.
Delusion and Reason perceive the same things, but it is certain that they perceive them differently. Delusion is an attack on Reason that attempts to drive it out of mind and take its place. Reason does not attack in return, but merely takes the place of delusion in the mind quietly, replacing madness there, if it be the will of the deluded to listen to reason. But the deluded know not their will. For they believe they perceive the body, and they let their madness tell them it is real. Reason is incapable of this. And, if you would defend the body against Reason, you will not understand the body or yourself.
The body does not separate you from your sisters and brothers, and if you think it does, you are deluded. But delusion has a purpose, as mad as it is, and it believes it also has the means to make its purpose real. For it must be senseless to perceive the body as a barrier between what Reason tells you must be joined. Nor could you perceive such a barrier if you heard the Voice of Reason. What could there be that stands between what is continuous? And if there is nothing in between, how can what enters part be kept away from other parts? Reason would tell you this.
But think what you must recognize, if this be true. If you chose to continue your belief in separation instead of allowing healing, you would condemn the Children of the Divine to what in your belief could never be corrected. You would be telling them by your choice that they are irredeemable, separate from you and from their Creator forever, and without a hope of safe return. You would be teaching them this, and you would learn of them exactly what you taught. For you can teach them only that they are as you would have them be. And what you choose they be is simply your choice for yourself.
Yet think not that these mistaken thoughts are fearful. That you are joined in mind with your sisters and brothers and your Creator is simply a Fact, not an interpretation. How can a Fact be fearful, unless it disagrees with what you hold dearer than Truth? Reason will tell you that this Fact is your Release. Neither you nor your sisters and brothers can be attacked alone. But neither can accept a miracle instead without the other being blessed by it, and healed of pain.
True Reason, like Love, would reassure you, and not seek to frighten you. The Power to heal the Children of the Divine is given you because your sisters and brothers must be One with you. You are responsible for the impact you have on how they perceive themselves. But Reason tells you that it is given you to transform your mind and theirs, which is One with yours, in just an Instant. And any Instant serves to bring complete correction of their errors in your mind, and make your sisters and brothers whole. The Instant that you choose to let yourself be healed is the same Instant that their whole awakening is seen as being complete with yours. Reason is given you to understand that this is so. For Reason, kind as is the Purpose for which It is a Means, leads steadily away from delusion, toward the Goal of Truth.
And here you will lay down the burden of denying Truth. For this, and not the Truth, is the burden that is terrible. The Fact that you are joined is your awakening—the Gift of Heaven, not the “gift” of fear. Does Heaven seem to be a burden to you? In madness, yes. And yet what madness looks upon must be dispelled by Reason. Reason assures you that Heaven is what you want, and all you want. Listen to Spirit, Who speaks to you with Reason, and brings your reasoning in line with Its. Be willing to let Reason be the Means by which Spirit would direct you how to leave insanity behind. Hide not behind insanity in order to escape from Spirit’s Reasoning.
What delusion would attempt to conceal the Holy Spirit still holds out for everyone to behold with gladness:
You are your sisters and brothers’ awakener, and they are yours.
Reason speaks happily indeed of this. This gracious Plan was given Love by Love. And what Love plans is like Itself in this. Being united, Love would have you learn that you must be united. And being One with Love, it must be given you to give what It has given, and gives still. Spend just an Instant in the glad acceptance of what is given you to give your sisters and brothers, and learn with them what has been given both of you. To give is no more blessed than to receive, but neither is it less.
The Children of the Divine are always blessed as One. And as their gratitude goes out to you who blessed them, Reason will tell you that it cannot be that you stand apart from blessing. The gratitude they offer you reminds you of the Thanks your Creator gives you and them for completing It. And Reason tells you that here alone can you understand what you must be. Your Creator is as close to you as are your sisters and brothers. Yet what is there that could be nearer you than is your holy Self?
The Power that you have in true or holy relationship with the Children of the Divine is not a threat to their reality. It simply attests to it. Where could their Freedom be but in themselves, if they be free already? And who could bind them but themselves, if they deny their Freedom? The Divine is not mocked. Its Children could not be imprisoned except by their own desire or consent. And it is also by their own desire that they are freed. Such is their Strength, and not their weakness. They are at their own mercy. Where they choose to condemn, there are they held a prisoner, waiting in chains their pardon on themselves to set themselves free. And where they choose to be merciful, there are they free.
