Light in the Dream

Chapter 18 – 3. Light in the Dream

You who have spent your life in bringing truth to illusion, reality to fantasy,
have walked the way of dreams. For you have gone from waking to
sleeping, and on and on to a yet deeper sleep. Each dream has led to other
dreams, and every fantasy that seemed to bring a light into the darkness but
made the darkness deeper. Your goal was darkness, in which no ray of light
could enter. And you sought a blackness so complete that you could hide
from truth forever, in complete insanity. What you forgot was simply that
God cannot destroy himself. The light is in you. Darkness can cover it, but
cannot put it out.
 
As the light comes nearer you will rush to darkness, shrinking from the
truth, sometimes retreating to the lesser forms of fear, and sometimes to
stark terror. But you will advance, because your goal is the advance from
fear to truth. The goal you accepted is the goal of knowledge, for which you
signified your willingness. Fear seems to live in darkness, and when you are
afraid you have stepped back. Let us then join quickly in an instant of light,
and it will be enough to remind you that your goal is light.
 
Truth has rushed to meet you since you called upon it. If you knew Who
walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be
impossible. You do not know because the journey into darkness has been
long and cruel, and you have gone deep into it. A little flicker of your
eyelids, closed so long, has not yet been sufficient to give you confidence in
yourself, so long despised. You go toward love still hating it, and terribly
afraid of its judgment upon you. And you do not realize that you are not
afraid of love, but only of what you have made of it. You are advancing to
love’s meaning, and away from all illusions in which you have surrounded
it. When you retreat to the illusion your fear increases, for there is little
doubt that what you think it means is fearful. Yet what is that to us who
travel surely and very swiftly away from fear?
 
You who hold your brother’s hand also hold mine, for when you joined each
other you were not alone. Do you believe that I would leave you in the
darkness that you agreed to leave with me? In your relationship is this
world’s light. And fear must disappear before you now. Be tempted not to
snatch away the gift of faith you offered to your brother. You will succeed
only in frightening yourself. The gift is given forever, for God himself
received it. You cannot take it back. You have accepted God. The holiness
of your relationship is established in Heaven. You do not understand what
you accepted, but remember that your understanding is not necessary. All
that was necessary was merely the wish to understand. That wish was the
desire to be holy. The Will of God is granted you. For you desire the only
thing you ever had, or ever were.
 
Each instant that we spend together will teach you that this goal is possible,
and will strengthen your desire to reach it. And in your desire lies its
accomplishment. Your desire is now in complete accord with all the power
of the Holy Spirit’s Will. No little, faltering footsteps that you may take can
separate your desire from his will and from his strength. I hold your hand as
surely as you agreed to take your brother’s. You will not separate, for I
stand with you and walk with you in your advance to truth. And where we
go we carry God with us.
 
In your relationship you have joined with me in bringing Heaven to the Son
of God, who hid in darkness. You have been willing to bring the darkness to
light, and this willingness has given strength to everyone who would remain
in darkness. Those who would see will see. And they will join with me in
carrying their light into the darkness, when the darkness in them is offered
to the light, and is removed forever. My need for you, joined with me in the
holy light of your relationship, is your need for salvation. Would I not give
you what you gave to me? For when you joined your brother, you answered
me.
 
You who are now the bringer of salvation have the function of bringing
light to darkness. The darkness in you has been brought to light. Carry it
back to darkness, from the holy instant to which you brought it. We are
made whole in our desire to make whole. Let not time worry you, for all the
fear that you and your brother experience is really past. Time has been
readjusted to help us do, together, what your separate pasts would hinder.
 
You have gone past fear, for no two minds can join in the desire for love
without love’s joining them.
 
Not one light in Heaven but goes with you. Not one Ray that shines forever
in the Mind of God but shines on you. Heaven is joined with you in your
advance to Heaven. When such great lights have joined with you to give the
little spark of your desire the power of God himself, can you remain in
darkness? You are coming home together, after a long and meaningless
journey that you undertook apart, and that led nowhere. You have found
your brother, and you will light each other’s way. And from this light will
the Great Rays extend back into darkness and forward unto God, to shine
away the past and so make room for his eternal presence, in which
everything is radiant in the light.