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331  There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.
 
It is all so simple. How could a loving Universal Intelligence assess, evaluate, judge and condemn its own creations? How can love be conditional? How preposterous it is even to think that God would say, "I'll love you for good behavior and send you to hell for bad behavior."

If I end the imaginary separation between me and God, I look on all with soft eyes of love. I see the self-inflicted suffering and say, "brother, choose again." I do not fight that which I am and will forever be. No more useless journeys. No more tilting at windmills, for my will is Yours.

332  Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.

Fear bound the world in the nightmares of the last century--two world wars, the gulags of Siberia, the ovens of Auschwitz. Who wants any more of that? One shudders at the horror. Dear God, let me add my voice and my steps, my writing and my example, to help restore the world to sanity. Jesus the Christ chose to die rather than to be bound by fear. All I am asked to do is to live a powerful life. Forgiveness sets me free, and the world along with me. Let us live in peace today. Let me forgive those who wage war in my name, for they do not know what they do. So be it.

332 Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.

Fear. Yesterday I experienced a brief resampling of dread, my constant companion for decades. Back then, my ego would have sniffed at the feeling like a hound: "What's behind this? Let me journal and analyze and read about it and talk with a counselor except I'm too cheap to visit a counselor." So round and round I would go, until my mind wrapped itself in chains, despair set in, and death began to look like the Final Solution.

How simple is salvation! I need do nothing. I can take one look at fear and tell God: "Take it, transform it, whatever. The ball is in your court."

333  Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.
 
So this is how war ends. This is the answer to famine, persecution and genocide. It starts with me: with letting go of judgment, evaluation, letting go of praise as well as criticism. If a brother makes an outrageous request, I do it--not because it matters, but because it does not. I either see the face of Christ in my brother, or my projection, which is something I make up, an idea in my mind.
 
Today I will practice ending the dream of conflict. Today I will look softly upon a forgiven world.

333 (2006) Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.

MT: My first, kneejerk reaction, is Enough Already! Forgiveness again?
JC: And again and again. Forgive, not ten times, but ten times ten, and a hundred times ten. This is your function while you reside in a body.
MT: Having gotten past my initial annoyance, what can you tell me about today?
JC: Forgive your son for his seeming rejection of what you had to say. Forgive yourself for saying it. There's no one here! These are dream figures interacting in the dream.
MT: I love my grandkids so deeply. I want to protect them. I want to make him into the perfect father. He puffs up with my approval but gets angry at anything negative I have to say.
JC: The children are dream figures as well. The hurt you think you see is not real.
MT: In this situation, what is my role?
JC: To accept Atonement for yourself. To let go of ancient hurts the children are reflecting back to you. Nothing happened six decades ago, as the imagined you collided with figures in the dream.
MT: Slippery concepts, JC.
JC: Look beyond concepts. Behold the glorious reality of What Is.

334  Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.
 
MT: Forgiveness gives me everything I could possibly need. But, the ego (it's still there!) says, how about those things I might possibly want? Good food, fine wine, designer clothes, a BMW, a vacation in Bermuda, an estate on the hill?
JC: Having studied this far, I know you no longer desire that which the world calls luxury, and besides you are grateful for that! 
MT: In some ways, I feel old beyond my calendar years. One by one, those things I thought I "needed" and surely wanted, those things have dropped away like leaves in the fall. I've either owned them, or seen them for what they really are—a burden and a curse. 
JC: Whoa! Not so fast! Why not call them meaningless instead? 
MT: You are right. To call them a curse is to give them an importance they do not have. 
JC: Material wealth aside, what does forgiveness offer you?  
MT: It offers me sinlessness. With sinlessness, my life is changed. With sinlessness, I open myself to God's Presence, a gift beyond price. There was a time when I was skeptical—God's Presence? What about the BMW?—but I've changed. I don’t just mouth the words; my heart sees the truth in them.  
JC: Welcome to the real world. Now are you free to enjoy perks of money and power, if you should still want them.
MT: I am grateful to you, JC, and the true selflessness of those who gave of themselves to pave the way for me—people like Helen and Bill who spent seven years taking down the Course for no material reward or public recognition. They did because they couldn’t not do it. I want nothing better than that in my life. That is the gift of forgiveness I claim for myself, today.

335  I choose to see my brother's sinlessness.
 
MT: Easier said than done. How do I see al Zarqawi as sinless, when he saws people's heads off with a dull blade and videotapes the bloody scene? That's got to turn your stomach. Repugnant behavior for a holy Son of God!
JC: Why don't you start with an easier task? How about viewing your partner, your neighbor, the cop who gives you a ticket, as sinless?
MT: Yes, definitely, it would be easier. There is so much resistance to forgiveness. The press raised objections to a recent TV movie that portrayed Hitler as an abused child. The ego wants to see monsters. Seeing Hitler as a monster maintains the status quo.  
JC: I am going to insist: extreme examples are sometimes appropriate, but for the purpose of learning, start with an easier task. Choose to see your aging parent as sinless. 
MT: That's hard! I get enmeshed in a web of knee-jerk responses, and before I know it, I'm projecting like crazy. The family reinforces the pattern of relating to each other by criticizing him. We connect by sighing, "tsk, tsk, ain't he a pill" and then we agree, and of course nothing changes because we made up this reality. I need help with that. The group energy entangles me. 
JC: And you will get help. Guaranteed. A suggestion: enlist the help of the others. Talk about how you are seeing B., and state your intention to behold his sinlessness instead. Miracles will happen.
MT: Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks, JC : )

335  I choose to see my brother's sinlessness.

Perception is a choice, and that's so cool! Right now, who am I seeing as a Son of God, and who remains a sinner to my eyes today? Spirit hovers over all of us. We will not be in Paradise as long as one of us remains outside. Yes, they are choosing to be separate, but my mind can enforce this view, or it can say: "enough of that. I choose to see you as you really are: eternally sinless, the radiant being of light that God created."

335 I choose to see my brother's sinlessness.

"Forgiveness is a choice. I never see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception."
MT: His true Self, then, is beyond the senses. What I see with the body's eyes is like those cardboard people advertising a new product on the sidewalk.

"What I see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to be the truth."
MT: So I attempt to make the untrue true. I spend huge amounts of effort doing so. I am Don Quixote stabbing windmills.

"It is to this alone that I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings."
MT: The outside is really inside. There is no world, there is only Mind making it up to play the game of sin, suffering, and death.

"I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this."
MT: Yegads, you are relentless! If I choose to see sin, suffering, and death, this I will see.

"My brother's sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own."
MT: I forgive myself by forgiving the seeming Other.

"And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light."
MT: I will see a forgiven world, and again, it's a choice. I can see ugliness, or I can see a world bathed in the ineffably delightful reflection of God.

"What could restore Your memory to me, except to see my brother's sinlessness?"
MT: It just won't do to curse my fellow man and retreat to a cave to see God. My mother did that! I know it doesn't work.

"His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me, and like myself."
MT: So God is in the relationship! That is, in the holy relationship that I now choose to create in place of my sick imaginings.

"In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well."
MT: I longed to find my Self, but my Self was all around me.

336  Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined.

MT: This is still only a concept for me. I want to feel the truth of it in my bones, in my gut.
JC: And you will.
MT: Well, show it to me then! How long do I have to wait?
JC: It takes faith. Knowledge comes as fast as your budding faith will allow.
MT: It's up to me, then. Always up to me.
JC: You sound angry today.
MT: Yes, I'm angry. I'm reading a book that's pure ego, and it's making me angry.
JC: Well?!!
MT: (defensively) It's engaging to read. I want to be engaged. It's about addiction. It has that coyote-around-camp quality of a soul that's afraid to be one with God. But it's angry.
JC: So it's not pure ego, is it? Nothing is pure ego. A ray of God shines in the darkest soul. Without God, that soul would wither and die, like a plant cut off from its roots. Addiction merely postpones the day when a soul lets God in.
MT: You did it again, JC. You totally changed my mood. Thank you, sweetheart, brother, guide.

336 (2006) Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined.

MT: Used to be a scary thought, JC--"you mean, people can read my mind? What about stuff I might want to hide?"
JC: But that has changed.
MT: It changed with forgiveness. It changed with cleaning up the Augean stables of my mind. There isn't much I would need to hide at this point. And it's not so much a question of what I would hide, it's a letting go of the fear of my fellow man. That's what it is.
JC: The gifts forgiveness brings!
MT: I get a glimpse of the forgiven world, the unchained collective mind, when no one will feel the need to hide from anyone else. What power this will unleash! As Teilhard de Chardin wrote, "The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."

337  My sinlessness protects me from all harm.
 
MT: If I were to make a wish today, it would be: I want to be perfectly safe. I want peace of mind and deliverance from suffering. I want happiness as my only state. And you tell me this is all mine if I recognize my sinlessness? 
JC: You've got it. Accept Atonement for yourself. But hold nothing back! Keep no dark secrets from God. 
MT: What dark secrets am I clutching to my chest? 
JC: You know what I'm talking about. You think that deep down you are really promiscuous, that only shame keeps you honorable. You think you are crazy and inappropriate, that if you let go of control, a male authority out there will toss you in a padded cell to mend your ways. You are still ashamed that M. raped you, decades back. 
MT: Ouch. He was only playing. 
JC: Stop making excuses. What needs to happen is for you to distance yourself from those events and the beliefs you built around them. That is accomplished by accepting Atonement for yourself. Only then can you offer it to others. 
MT: Let me mull on that for a moment. When I make excuses for M., I'm reliving that scene instead of letting it go! 
JC: Your excuses for his behavior give you the illusion of being the better of the two. They come from unforgiveness, even as they appear noble and generous. 
MT: That's a startling insight! I wanted to close the chapter on that scene, but it kept recurring.
JC: So today, free yourself, and M. with you. 
MT: Thank you, JC. 
JC: I love you. I walk with you, today and forever.

337 (2006) My sinlessness protects me from all harm.

MT: I can see the truth in this statement. What dispels fear of others and fear of unnamable evils is, ultimately, the acceptance of my own sinlessness. If I have not sinned, I have nothing to hide. God won't be coming after me with hurricanes and floods and earthquakes if I have not sinned. In case a natural disaster does happen, I will ask for guidance and then take whatever action the Holy Spirit suggests. God takes away the desperation.
JC: How can you use this lesson in your life today?
MT: Oh, this day, not a hypothetical calamity that may or may not come to pass. Today. There's strife around me, JC, in my children's lives. I desperately want to help.
JC: And you just said that God takes away the desperation!
MT: So I did, and I believed it, except for where I am seeing a disaster in the making.
JC: And seeing yourself, your ego that is, as the only possible savior. That attitude needs correction. Like a thief in the night, it takes away your peace of mind.
MT: OK, my savior complex, my knight-in-armor, that's gotta go. I hereby surrender to God the problems in my children's lives and my in-laws lives and, while I'm at it, in my own life! Let me today go back to the beginning: I do not know what anything is for. I live in a mysterious world that the ego reduces to simple rules and hard facts. Let me today welcome the silent cloud of unknowing.

338  I am affected only by my thoughts.
 
Imagine if everybody on the planet accepted this at the same instant! Blame would be gone, guilt as well. If Dubya said, I am affected only by my thoughts about Saddam, and Saddam said I am affected only by my thoughts about Americans. If I said, I am affected only by my thoughts about my aging, disabled, and sweetly tyrannical father-in-law, and he said, I am affected only by my thoughts of not getting enough attention—what a new world this would be! We would all take responsibility for our attitudes, and with no reinforcement from others, war and poverty, the self-generated ills of civilization, would be gone in an instant.
 
Come to think of it, when I say that my father-in-law is sweetly tyrannical, I am boxing him in. It takes a lot of strength for him to behave differently when others agree that's how he is. If enough people call you a horse's rump, you begin to believe you are a horse's rump, and pretty soon you grow a tail!
 
So today, Holy Father, I allow Your Presence in my thoughts. Today I look upon a world redeemed.

338 (2006) I am affected only by my thoughts.

MT: Talk to me about this, JC.
JC: You want to post something new, as opposed to last year's blog.
MT: Yes, I do, but I'm feeling lazy.
JC: Don't judge yourself.
MT: I am tired of efforting, that is true. Did I hear you say lazy is good?
JC: You can use absolutely any behavior in your repertoire to remember God, laziness included.
MT: It's all in the intention, then. What is my intention with anything I do, say, or think? But I get confused.
JC: Confusion, too, can help you remember God.
MT: And opinion? Opinion is of the ego. Think I got you there.
JC: Do you want to "get JC," or do you want to be happy?
MT: The answer is obvious: I would rather be happy than win. Today, show me true happiness. I am ready for happiness, lightness, and joy.

339  I will receive whatever I request.
 
JC, you are telling me that all I really, really want is to do God's will, and all these things of Earth shall be added. I guess that is because, if God is the center, the peripheral stuff can be had, or not had, and it doesn't matter. But I need help to focus and to listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
JC: No problem. There are souls upon souls hovering around you, wanting nothing better than to assist. You have misused your mind to maintain distance between yourself and the help that's out there.
MT: I am prone to anger outbursts now. I need help handling them so I don't hurt myself, others, or damage property. If I am to follow guidance moment by moment, that involves a risk. That's what's scary—what happens when I get in touch with my feelings, and some ain't pretty. I threw that candle way out in the yard—why did I do that? I break my own stuff when I would really want to break someone else's. I'm capable of taking a sledgehammer to my nice car when S. shoves his way into the driver's seat. I'm scared of myself! 
JC: There is fear behind your anger, no? 
MT: Yes. I am afraid of getting crushed because of my anger. My Dad the lawgiver. . . getting tossed in jail. . . being beaten. . . there are many catastrophic expectations I make up. Please help me rewrite this chapter of ancient history. I was crushed by fear. Fear put out the light in me. If I can't be sassy, I can't be nice either. 
JC: The anger is only misdirected energy.
MT: So please help me redirect my energy. That's what I am asking. Don't play deaf. 
JC: My voice is as loud as your willingness to hear. 
MT: Tell me where we are, you and I. I'm confused and split. I'd like to believe, but I'm having a hard time today. 
JC: We are touching on deeply ingrained old stuff here. It doesn't come easy, does it? 
MT: No. It does not.
JC: So let it go for now and take a break. There's no need to solve everything today. You've come a long way. Sort out your files or plant a tree or pull weeds in the yard. I'm serious. Redirect your energy right now.
MT: I really heard you this time. Thank you.

339 (2005) I will receive whatever I request.

MT: A theme that's been in my mind for a few days now, JC! Let me chew on these words: I will receive whatever I request. The ego immediately jumps up indignantly: what about the Holocaust? What about the child that is abducted, raped, and murdered? Hurricanes and floods and earthquakes?
JC: You watch too much TV.
MT: But seriously now, those questions are bound to come up. This is one of the hardest lessons to accept.
JC: Seriously now, how do you open yourself to miracles? You do so by miracle-readiness. It brings you out of the ego mindset, and into God's mindset. The extraordinary becomes ordinary: of course I receive whatever I request, it needs no examining, it's not a wonder, that's the way it is!
MT: Miracle is a word you use when you don't know how God works. . . thanks, Friend.

339 (2006) I will receive whatever I request.

MT: The corollary is, whatever I have, this I have requested.
JC: That is true also, but why not look at the future instead?
MT: OK, that's a point I can accept. To look back only brings on regrets and guilt. I want healing for this shoulder/neck problem. I am requesting that now.
JC: Who needs to be forgiven, and for what?
MT: Bill, for being so #$*%^! helpless. I hurt my shoulders, neck and low back, all of it, by struggling to peel a 180-lb man off a chair and onto a standing position. That was stupid.
JC: Perchance to forgive yourself?
MT: I don't like to be needy and in pain. I want to be the one who needs nothing and nobody.
JC: So, let me review: you (rather, your ego) attempted to show the world how wrong Bill was and how right you were, even if it required damage to the body that you so badly want to keep in shape. You were asking him to try harder, to be fit, to need nothing and nobody, not to be so quick to accept limitations. You were asking him to be like you!
MT: That's a mess, JC, a Sargasso Sea of contradiction. The only way out is to change my mind. So my prayer for today is: Holy Spirit, help me change my mind about bodies, about Bill, about myself.

340  I can be free of suffering today.
 
Only the body can suffer, and I am not a body. The world's drama goes on around me, but my Self can be the stillpoint, a calm presence in the turmoil, a drop of oil on the roiling waves. Whenever I believe I am suffering, I can tap into the Source and remember who I am. I can suffer, or I can be with God in Paradise. Now let me enter into Silence, when God's word fills me with wonder and gratitude.

340 (2006) I can be free of suffering today.

MT: Thanks, JC, for your guidance yesterday. I am tempted to get puffed up with pride. I have to remember that the words didn't come from me.
JC: Always here for you. Your function, and mine as well, is to remind the world of the bigger picture. Prideful puffing is a passing backwash, nothing to worry about.
MT: I so much want to help my son, without resorting to homilies.
JC: There is a temptation to fix in others the imagined cracks you see in yourself. YOU can be free of suffering today.
MT: How do you see me suffering?
JC: The determination to help E is your suffering du jour.
MT: OK, I see, tomorrow it will be a different one.
JC: And on and on. You can always find cracks in others, until you realize there is nobody else. There is no one here!
MT: Wouldn't that be fun, if it really were so. No one here, just disembodied suffering happening. May as well be happiness happening!

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