The Two Worlds

Chapter 18 – 9. The Two Worlds

You have been told 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 tiny part of yourself, the little thought that seems split off
and separate, the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God’s keeping, and
needs no guide. Yet this wild and delusional thought needs help because, in
its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler
of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and
slavery. This is the little part you think you stole from Heaven. Give it back
to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it, but you have lost sight of Heaven. Let the
 
Holy Spirit remove it from the withered kingdom in which you set it off,
surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack and reinforced by hate. Within
its barricades is still a tiny segment of the Son of God, complete and holy,
serene and unaware of what you think surrounds it.
 
Be you not separate, 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 kingdom
really is. The barren sands, the darkness and the lifelessness, are seen only
through the body’s eyes. Its bleak sight is distorted, and the messages it
transmits to you who made it to limit your awareness are little and limited,
and so fragmented they are meaningless.
 
From the world of bodies, made by insanity, insane messages seem to be
returned to the mind that made it. And these messages bear witness to this
world, pronouncing it as true. 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 that speak of what lies underneath, for it is not the
body that could speak of this. Its eyes perceive it not; its senses remain quite
unaware of it; its tongue cannot relay its messages. Yet God can bring you
there, if you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror,
trusting him not to abandon you and leave you there. For it is not his
purpose to frighten you, but only yours. You are severely tempted to
abandon him at the outside ring of fear, but he would lead you safely
through and far beyond.
 
The circle of fear lies just below the level the body sees, and seems to be the
whole foundation on which the world is based. Here are all the illusions, all
the twisted thoughts, all the insane attacks, the fury, the vengeance and
betrayal that were made to keep the guilt in place, so that the world could
rise from it and keep it hidden. Its shadow rises to the surface, enough to
hold its most external manifestations in darkness, and to bring despair and
loneliness to it and keep it joyless. Yet its intensity is veiled by its heavy
coverings, and kept apart from what was made to keep it hidden. The body
cannot see this, for the body arose from this for its protection, which
depends on keeping it not seen. The body’s eyes will never look on it. Yet
they will see 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 reality of guilt is the illusion that seems
to make it 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 behind it. And then you see it 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 wholly 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 climb above it and see the sun. It is not strong enough to
stop a button’s fall, nor hold a feather. Try but to touch it and it disappears;
attempt to grasp it and your hands hold nothing.
 
Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. A solid
mountain range, a lake, a city, all rise in your imagination, and from the
clouds the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that it
is 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 game of children’s make-believe. Yet
however long you play it, and regardless of how much imagination you
bring to it, you do not confuse it with the world below, nor seek to make it
real.
 
So should it be with the dark clouds of guilt, no more impenetrable and no
more substantial. You will not bruise yourself against them in traveling
through. Let your Guide teach you their unsubstantial nature as he leads you
past them, for beneath them is a world of light whereon they cast no
shadows. Their shadows lie upon the world beyond them, still further from
the light. Yet 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 outside is seen anew, without the
shadow of guilt upon it. Here is the new perception, where everything is
bright and shining with innocence, washed in the waters of forgiveness, and
cleansed of every evil thought you laid upon it. Here there is no attack upon
the Son of God, and you are welcome. 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 laid by, and
gently replaced by purity and love.
 
Yet even forgiveness is not the end. Forgiveness does make lovely, but it
does not create. It is the source of healing, but it is the messenger of love
and not its Source. Here you are led, that God himself can take the final step
unhindered, for here does nothing interfere with love, letting it be itself. A
step beyond this holy place, a step still further inward but the one you
cannot take, transports you to something completely different. Here is the
Source of light; nothing perceived, forgiven nor 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 lie 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. Where learning ends there God begins, for learning
ends before him who is complete where he begins, and where there is no
end. It is not for us to dwell on what cannot be attained. There is too much
to learn. The readiness for knowledge still must be attained.
 
Love is not learned. Its meaning lies within itself. And learning ends when
you have recognized all it is not. That is the interference; that is what needs
to be undone. Love is not learned, because there never was a time in which
you knew it not. Learning is useless in the Presence of your Creator, Whose
acknowledgment of you and yours of him so far transcend all learning that
everything you learned is meaningless, replaced forever by the knowledge
of love and its one meaning.
 
Your relationship with your brother has been uprooted from the world of
shadows, and its unholy purpose has been safely brought through the
barriers of guilt, washed with forgiveness, and set shining and firmly rooted
in the world of light. From there it calls to you to follow the course it took,
lifted high above the darkness and gently placed before the gates of Heaven.
 
The holy instant in which you were united is but the messenger of love, sent
from beyond forgiveness to remind you of all that lies beyond it. Yet it is
through forgiveness that it will be remembered.
 
And when the memory of God 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 untrue, lifting the shadows
from the world and carrying it, 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.