The “Sacrifice” of Oneness

Chapter 26 – 1. The “Sacrifice” of Oneness

In the “dynamics” of attack is sacrifice a key idea. It is the pivot upon which
all compromise, all desperate attempts to strike a bargain, and all conflicts
achieve a seeming balance. It is the symbol of the central theme that
somebody must lose. Its focus on the body is apparent, for it is always an
attempt to limit loss. The body is itself a sacrifice; a giving up of power in
the name of saving just a little for yourself. To see a brother in another
body, separate from yours, is the expression of a wish to see a little part of
him and sacrifice the rest. Look at the world, and you will see nothing
attached to anything beyond itself. All seeming entities can come a little
nearer, or go a little farther off, but cannot join.
 
The world you see is based on “sacrifice” of oneness. It is a picture of
complete disunity and total lack of joining. Around each entity is built a
wall so seeming solid that it looks as if what is inside can never reach
without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away
within the wall. Each part must sacrifice the other part, to keep itself
complete. For if they joined each one would lose its own identity, and by
their separation are their selves maintained.
 
The little that the body fences off becomes the self, preserved through
sacrifice of all the rest. And all the rest must lose this little part, remaining
incomplete to keep its own identity intact. In this perception of yourself the
body’s loss would be a sacrifice indeed. For sight of bodies becomes the
sign that sacrifice is limited, and something still remains for you alone. And
for this little to belong to you are limits placed on everything outside, just as
they are on everything you think is yours. For giving and receiving are the
same. And to accept the limits of a body is to impose these limits on each
brother whom you see. For you must see him as you see yourself.
 
The body is a loss, and can be made to sacrifice. And while you see your
brother as a body, apart from you and separate in his cell, you are
demanding sacrifice of him and you. What greater sacrifice could be
demanded than that God’s Son perceive himself without his Father? And his
Father be without His Son? Yet every sacrifice demands that they be
separate and without the other. The memory of God must be denied if any
sacrifice is asked of anyone. What witness to the Wholeness of God’s Son is
seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to
truth? He is invisible in such a world. Nor can his song of union and of love
be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his song,
and sight of him replace the body’s eyes.
 
Those who would see the witnesses to truth instead of to illusion merely ask
that they might see a purpose in the world that gives it sense and makes it
meaningful. Without your special function has this world no meaning for
you. Yet it can become a treasure house as rich and limitless as Heaven
itself. No instant passes here in which your brother’s holiness cannot be
seen, to add a limitless supply to every meager scrap and tiny crumb of
happiness that you allot yourself.
 
You can lose sight of oneness, but can not make sacrifice of its reality. Nor
can you lose what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit from His
task of showing you that it has not been lost. Hear, then, the song your
brother sings to you, and let the world recede, and take the rest his witness
offers on behalf of peace. But judge him not, for you will hear no song of
liberation for yourself, nor see what it is given him to witness to, that you
may see it and rejoice with him. Make not his holiness a sacrifice to your
belief in sin. You sacrifice your innocence with his, and die each time you
see in him a sin deserving death.
 
Yet every instant can you be reborn, and given life again. His holiness gives
life to you, who cannot die because his sinlessness is known to God; and
can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out
because he sees it not. You who would make a sacrifice of life, and make
your eyes and ears bear witness to the death of God and of His holy Son,
think not that you have power to make of Them what God willed not They
be. In Heaven, God’s Son is not imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in
solitude to sin. And as he is in Heaven, so must he be eternally and
everywhere. He is the same forever. Born again each instant, untouched by
time, and far beyond the reach of any sacrifice of life or death. For neither
did he make, and only one was given him by One Who knows His gifts can
never suffer sacrifice and loss.
 
God’s justice rests in gentleness upon His Son, and keeps him safe from all
injustice the world would lay upon him. Could it be that you could make his
sins reality, and sacrifice his Father’s Will for him? Condemn him not by
seeing him within the rotting prison where he sees himself. It is your special
function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on
you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you. What is
the Holy Spirit’s special function but to release the holy Son of God from
the imprisonment he made to keep himself from justice? Could your
function be a task apart and separate from His Own?