Lesson 162: I am as God created me.

This single thought, held firmly in the mind, will save the world! These words are sacred, for they are the words God gave in answer to the world you made. All illusions vanish when these words are spoken, because they came from God. There is no dream these words will not dispel; no thought of separation or error and no illusion which the dream contains that will not fade away before their might. As related in the Course they are “the trumpet of awakening that sounds around the world” (2:4), “the dead awake in answer to its call” (2:5), and “those who live and hear this sound will never look on death.” (2:6)

The power of these words given to us by God is mighty, and holy is he who uses them and makes them his own. Arise with them in your mind, recall them throughout the day, and bring them with you as you go to sleep. Your dreams will be happy and your rest secure, your safety certain and your body healed, because you sleep and waken with the truth always before you. And you will save the world, because you give the world what you receive each time you practice the words of truth.

Your mind will be so changed as you use these words, that it will now become the treasury (storehouse) in which God places all His gifts and all His Love, to be distributed to all the world, increased in giving, and kept complete because its sharing is unlimited. These words are the truth that will set you free. You are as God created you. And thus you learn to think with God.

Lesson 163: There is no death. The Son of God is free.

Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized as a thought of death. For example, it may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt, anger, faithlessness and lack of trust, envy, lack, tiredness and sickness and concern for bodies, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. All of these thoughts of forms of death are reflections of the worship of death as a release from the trials of this body and of the world, and as such, to many the term salvation is represented by death. Yet these ideas and their source (ego) are the cause of all your trials. God did not make death, so whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion; salvation lies in truth, not death. Death is not the truth. Therefore, remove all thought of death, and only happiness and eternal life will be your reality.

Death is not more powerful than God’s Will for life. The belief in death is used by the ego as a witness that God is dead, and that you who believe in God inevitably will die also. Yet death is total. Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible. What contradicts one thought entirely cannot be true, unless its opposite is proven to be false. Can you prove that life is not real?? Then there is no death, for death is not God’s Will and is the opposite of the truth of life. Opposites cannot coexist. Therefore we understand that death is imaginary and illusory, and we accept God’s Thought of Life as real. Now we move forward in life with no more thought of death. It is given us to look past it, and see Life, Happiness and Joy beyond that particularly onerous illusion.

Lesson 164: Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.

The present is the only time there is, and it is where truth is recognized. Your Father is calling you. Christ answers for you echoing your Self, using your voice to give His glad consent and accepting your deliverance for you. Christ sees for you and hears for you and answers the Call to God for you – because Christ is the truth of you. Look past time and see eternity, hear the song of Heaven and the Voice for God rather than the sounds of the senseless, busy world. Vain imaginings part like a curtain to reveal what lies beyond them. With Christ’s vision the world unfolds in perfect innocence and its transformation is clear to you. Is not Christ’s vision worthy to be accepted, then, instead of using the body’s eyes to determine the truth of what you see? You can exchange all suffering for joy this very day, this very instant, by accepting Christ’s vision and your oneness with God.

There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of error and separation have never touched. All the worldly shadows that appear to hide the truth will sink away and what lies beyond them will be revealed. You will see the world in a new light. No fear will remain and your joy will be increased immeasurably. Merely let go all things you think you want and leave a clean and open space within your mind where salvation can enter. Accept this treasure from Christ and be blessed.

Lesson 165: Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.

The only thing that makes this world seem real is your own denial of the truth that lies beyond it. Your thoughts of misery and your belief in death and all its forms obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your Father wills for you. And what could hide what cannot be concealed except illusions? What could keep you from the awareness of what you already have except your choice to remain unaware, and even going so far as to deny what is there? Heaven is yours today, but for the asking. Ask and it is given you. Accept it now. Until you welcome it as yours, uncertainty will remain.

The Thought of God created you. It protects you, cares for you and makes your resting place soft and your way smooth, lighting your mind with happiness and love for all of eternity. That Thought still abides in you. Do not continue to deny it. Accept the Thought of God, the Thought of Love, and remember Who you are and Who your Father is ! Ask with fervor to remember! The Holy Spirit will answer any call to Him for help. Remember this: He will help you to remember YOU.

Lesson 166: I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

All things are given you. God gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness. And yet, unless your will is one with His, His gifts are not received because there is no other will but His. You have made up another will that is alien to His – a will of deprivation, sickness, worry, fear and confusion. All this is the opposite of what God wills for you, and so none of it is real. Ask yourself what you were thinking! Then choose once again, and this time choose God.

This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. Every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in one God. Thus to accept God’s gifts instead of your own seems like treachery to yourself.

Yet this is the only world you think you know, and thus you think your only safety is to cling to it. You think that without the world you will feel like an outcast; but honestly, ask yourself if you feel like that already? The world is where you feel cast out because here you have forgotten where you came from, where you go, and who you really are. The world only mirrors who you are not! That is why you continue to search for your truth, for your Identity. You came here TO SEARCH and yet with the ego’s help you will not find.

You look upon the world and believe it to be real and to have power over you, forgetting to believe in just one God. You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ’s touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts. Yet if you did, how would you then see yourself as tragic, when you realize you are only following the way you chose, and need but realize Who walks with you and open up your treasures to be free?

Do you see the foolishness of the ego’s plan to keep you separate from God’s gifts? Be good to yourself and accept them. Let go of this foolish game of denial – denial of God, of His gifts, and of your Self. Now you LIVE and cannot die. Become the living proof of what Christ’s touch can offer everyone, and share His gifts with the world. Now your hand becomes the giver of Christ’s touch. Remember, as you give, so do you receive, in abundance!

Lesson 167: There is one life, and that I share with God.

Just as there are not different kinds of love, there are not different kinds of life. Life is like the truth; it does not have degrees. There is no death because all that God created shares His Life. There is no hell because all that God created as His Home and ours is Heaven where even the idea of hell cannot enter. There is one God, one Life, one Love, and one Truth. It is simple.

You think that death is of the body. Yet it is but an idea and is irrelevant to what is seen as physical. This thought is only in the mind and can be applied as the mind directs it; but its origin must change if the idea is to be changed. The ego cannot speak to you of life because it only speaks of death. The ego cannot speak to you of heaven because it can only speak of hell. Yet God only speaks of life in Heaven because life is all there is. Whether you are asleep and dreaming, or whether you appear to be awake and dreaming, death and hell are still just unhappy, unreal dreams, and they are alien to the truth. What is alien to the mind does not exist, because its only source is the ego, and the ego is not real. Therefore alien thoughts have no source.

God’s Thoughts are forever changeless and forever true. And death is not the opposite of life because what God creates has no opposites of any kind. What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. And who changes life because he shuts his eyes, or makes himself what he is not because he sleeps, and sees in dreams an opposite to what he is? God created only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He does not give them. He does not create death, so He does not share the idea of death with you. And what you do not share with God does not exist. He created Life, only Life, and He shares that Life with you and you with Him. You share one life because you have one Source, a Source from Which perfection comes to you, remaining always in the holy minds which He created perfect.

Awaken, oh Child of God. See your own perfection mirroring the Lord of Life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there. And now it is no more a mere reflection. It becomes the thing reflected, and IS the light which makes reflection possible. No vision now is needed. For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness, and it knows its Home is Heaven. Listen to the trumpet of awakening that sounds around the world. Be children of the truth, and do not deny your holy heritage. Let Him be Lord of your mind.

Lesson 168: Your grace is given me. I claim it now.

God speaks to you. Shall you not speak to Him? He is not distant. He does not hide from you. Why try to hide from Him? It is about as effective as an ostrich hiding its head in the sand and thinking that it cannot be seen. Hiding from your Creator is another game you play, with unwelcome results.

Accept His grace instead. For in grace you see a light that covers all the world in love, and you can watch the fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and claim the light as theirs. If you but knew the meaning of His Love, hope and despair would be impossible. For hope would be forever satisfied; despair of any kind unthinkable. Mistakes have been made, yet God answers our mistakes with the means to lay them down, and to rise to Him in gratitude and love. God’s grace suffices in all things. He gives it, and we receive it, and we are redeemed by His Love. Is anything in this world more important than consistently accepting the grace of God’s Love?