Lesson 183: I call upon God’s Name and on my own.

God’s Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. You, your Father, and your brothers are united in a bond of mutual Identity. Should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat God’s name along with him within your quiet mind, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son, the Christ. Say God’s Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness. The Name of God is a heavenly respite from this world. And it is yours.

Learn the power of the holy use of God’s Name. Repeat His Name, and all the world responds by laying down illusions. Every dream the world holds dear has suddenly gone by and where it seemed to stand, you find a miracle of grace. The sick arise, healed of their sickly thoughts. The blind can see; the deaf can hear. The sorrowful cast off their mourning, and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world. Can the Name of God do all this? Yes, and even more.

Practice this: repeat God’s Name slowly again and still again. Become oblivious to every name but His. Hear nothing else. Let all your thoughts become anchored on This. And when God’s Name becomes your only thought, your only word, the only thing that that occupies your mind, the only wish you have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of everything you desire to see, of everything that you would call your own: THEN you can achieve a state in which you will experience the gift of grace, thus escaping all bondage of the world, and you will give the world the same release that you found. No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds them all within it. God . . . God . . . God.

Would you experience this peace today? If the answer is “yes,” then in His Name, it shall be yours!

Lesson 184: The Name of God is my inheritance.

You live by symbols. You have made up names for everything you see. You have even named each other. And when you call upon a brother, it is to his body that you make appeal. His true Identity is hidden from you by what you believe he really is (a body). His body answers your call, for his mind consents to accept your assessment of his identity. You perceive him as separate from you, and he accepts the separate name as his.

By this naming, you think you made the world, for what is named is given meaning. It will then be seen as meaningful. It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means, the way in which communication is achieved and concepts are shared and growth is achieved. This is the sum of the inheritance the world bestows. Yet learning that stops with what the world would teach, stops short of meaning. Yet it can be a starting point from which another kind of learning can begin, as you use these words to teach a higher lesson.

Thus what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. Here you understand the Word, the Name which God has given you. And all the names the world has made are then seen as only a convenience. His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and then all learning ends in His grace. Every gap is closed, and separation is healed.

Prayer:

Father, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with You and with all living things. All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved from all effects our errors seemed to have. And we accept the truth You give, in place of every one of them. Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made, uniting us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace. Amen.

Lesson 185: I want the peace of God.

To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything. If you will but mean them for just an instant, there will be no further sorrow possible for you in any form, or in any place or time. Heaven will be completely given back to your full awareness, the memory of God will be entirely restored, and the resurrection of all creation will be fully recognized. If you but know the Help you have beside you, you will succeed as you request that the peace of God be given you.

Minds cannot unite in dreams, only in truth. Peace is obtained by joining your mind with other minds in the idea of peace. What dreams do you cherish still? What do you still ask for in your heart? Do not be dismayed by lingering illusions, for their form is not what matters now. All dreams are one, and being one, one question should be asked of all of them:

“Is this what I would have, in place of Heaven and the peace of God?”

This is the choice you make. You either choose dreams or choose God’s peace. Dreams will come if you request them. Yet will God’s peace come just as certainly, and it will remain with you forever if you ask for it. Dreams will be gone with every twist and turning of the road, and yet will reappear, unrecognized, in forms which shift and change with every step you take. But God’s peace, which is already given you in your creation, is not limited like the dreams of the world; it is always forever one in truth. All gifts of God can be shared -- an attribute that sets it apart from the dreams of the world.

Lesson 186: Salvation of the world depends on me.

Though this may seem to be an arrogant statement, it is actually a thought of true humility, which holds no function as your own but that which has been assigned to you. This thought acknowledges that the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven, restoring the world to Heaven’s peace. And it is done through you, as you lay all false humility aside and listen to God’s Voice reveal to you what He would have you do. Do not doubt your adequacy for the function you will be offered. Know only that He knows your strengths, your wisdom and holiness and deems you worthy; so you are.

You are not weak, as is the image you have made of yourself. Your self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving. You can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. Your very being seems to change as you experience a thousand shifts in mood, and your emotions raise you high indeed, or dash you to the ground in hopelessness. Who could be constant in his efforts, or direct his energies and concentrated drive with mood changes like these ten times an hour at their most secure? Yet these unsubstantial images will go and leave your mind unclouded and serene, when you accept the function given you. Your plans may be impossible, but God’s will succeed because He is the Source.

Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. With it, you can fulfill your function even here, although what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still. Salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. Such is your function here. Enjoy it; relish the opportunity of freedom from condemnation it gives you and your brothers.

Lesson 187: I bless the world because I bless myself.

Things represent the thoughts that make them. As you give them away, you are sure that you will never lose them, because when ideas are given away, they are strengthened in your own mind. So as you bless the world with Thoughts of Love, you are simultaneously blessing yourself with love. As you look within, you will see the purity of Heaven shine in your reflection of your Father’s Love.

Yet the thoughts and ideas must first belong to you before you can give them away. Those that do not come from your Source of God are not real. Ideas of love and truth are real because they are also Thoughts of God, and they can be shared. Thoughts of death, sickness, sadness and lack are unreal because they are ideas of the ego, which is equally unreal. Unreal thoughts cannot be shared. Unreal is unreal. One thing is not more unreal than another.

When you share a Thought of God with a brother, and see it bless him, this helps you both to understand it better. This is no sacrifice, as the thought returns to him who gives it in a form that is even more acceptable because it is extended and reinforced by giving. So give your brother a blessing. You can do this, as blessings are given you. You give what you have received from God.

In truth, there is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them. There is a giver who gives and a giver who retains. Both must gain in this exchange, for it is the thought behind the form of things that is the gift. Each will give and receive the thought in a form that is most helpful to him.

Lesson 188: The peace of God is shining in me now.

Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in you now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. This light came with you from Heaven and it will never leave you. It lights your home and leads you back to where it came from and from where you are at home. Thoughts you think in light with God lead you back to peace.

Do this: In quietness and with your eyes closed, exclude the “outer world” and let your thoughts fly to the peace within. They know the way. Take your wandering thoughts now and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts you share with God. And this time do not let them stray. Wash them of all impurities, strange desires and disordered wishes. Restore to them the holiness of their inheritance.

Now your mind is restored and the peace of God shines in you, and from you to all living things that share your life. Now forgive the world, absolving it from what you thought was done to you. Remember that you made the world the way you would have it be, so now absolve yourself of all your former disordered choices. Now choose that the world be innocent and open to salvation. The peace of God is shining in you now. God Himself gives you thanks. And in His blessing the light in you shines brighter, adding to the gifts you have to offer to the world. It is done. Amen.

Lesson 189: I feel the love of God within me now.

To feel the Love of God within you is to see the world anew, shining in innocence, alive with hope, and blessed with perfect charity and love. Who could feel fear in such a world as this? It welcomes you, rejoices that you came, and sings your praises as it keeps you safe from every form of danger and of pain. It offers you a warm and gentle home in which to stay a while. It blesses you throughout the day, and watches through the night as silent guardian of your holy sleep. It sees salvation in you, and protects the light in you. This is the world the Love of God reveals.

This belies the world you see with ego. It will not be described here because you have already seen the ego's ideas with your body’s eyes. Note this law of seeing: “You will look upon that which you feel within.” If you feel the Love of God within you, you will look upon a world of mercy and of love.