Fifteen

Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? Yet that is what time is *for*—to learn just that and nothing more. God's Teacher cannot be satisfied with His teaching until it constitutes *all* your learning. He has not fulfilled His teaching function until you have become such a consistent learner that you learn *only* of Him. When this has happened, you will no longer need a teacher or time in which to learn. One source of perceived discouragement from which you suffer is your belief that this takes time, and that the results of the Holy Spirit's teaching are far in the future. This is not so. For the Holy Spirit *uses* time in His own way and is not bound by it. \[Time is His friend in teaching. It does not waste Him as it does you.\] And all the waste that time seems to bring with it is due but to your identification with the ego, which uses time to support its belief in destruction. The ego, like the Holy Spirit, uses time to convince you of the inevitability of the goal and end of teaching. To the ego the goal is death, which *is* its end. But to the Holy Spirit the goal is life, which *has* no end.

The ego is an ally of time, but not a friend. For it is as mistrustful of death as it is of life, and what it wants for you it cannot tolerate. The ego wants *you* dead, but *not* itself. The outcome of its strange religion must therefore be the conviction that it can pursue you beyond the grave. And out of its unwillingness for you to find peace even in the death it wants for you, it offers you immortality in hell. It speaks to you of Heaven but assures you that Heaven is not for you. How can the guilty hope for Heaven? The belief in hell is inescapable to those who identify with the ego. Their nightmares and their fears are all associated with it. The ego teaches that hell is in the *future*, for this is what all its teaching is directed to. Hell is its *goal*, for although the ego aims at death and dissolution as an end, it does not *believe* it. The goal of death, which it craves for you, leaves it unsatisfied. No one who follows the ego's teaching is without the fear of death. Yet if death were thought of merely as an end to pain, would it be *feared*? We have seen this strange paradox in the ego's thought system before, but never so clearly as here. For the ego must seem to *keep* fear from you to keep your allegiance. Yet it must *engender* fear in order to maintain *itself*. Again the ego tries and all too frequently succeeds in doing both by using dissociation for holding its contradictory aims together so that they *seem* to be reconciled. The ego teaches thus: Death is the end as far as hope of Heaven goes. Yet because you and itself cannot be separated, and because it cannot conceive of its *own* death, it will pursue you still because guilt is eternal. Such is the ego's version of immortality. And it is this the ego's version of time supports. The ego teaches that Heaven is here and now because the *future* is hell. Even when it attacks so savagely that it tries to take the life of someone who hears it temporarily as the *only* voice, it speaks of hell even to him. For it tells him hell is *here* and bids him leap from hell into oblivion. The only time the ego allows anyone to look upon with some amount of equanimity is the past. And even there its only value is that it is no more. How bleak and despairing is the ego's use of time! And how terrifying! For underneath its fanatical insistence that the past and future be the same is hidden a far more insidious threat to peace. The ego does not advertise its final threat, for it would have its worshipers still believe that it can offer the *escape* from it. But the belief in guilt *must* lead to the belief in hell, *and* *always does*. The only way in which the ego allows the fear of hell to be experienced is to bring hell *here*, but always as a foretaste of the future. For no one who considers himself as deserving hell can believe that punishment will end in peace. The Holy Spirit teaches thus: There *is* no hell. Hell is only what the ego has made of the *present.* The belief in hell is what prevents you from *understanding* the present, because you are *afraid* of it. The Holy Spirit leads as steadily to Heaven as the ego drives to hell. For the Holy Spirit, Who knows *only* the present, uses it to undo the fear by which the ego would make the present useless. There is *no* escape from fear in the ego's use of time. For time, according to its teaching, is nothing but a teaching device for *compounding* guilt until it becomes all-encompassing and demands vengeance forever. The Holy Spirit would undo all of this *now*. Fear is *not* of the present but only of the past and future, which do not exist. There is no fear in the present when each instant stands clear and separated from the past, without its shadow reaching out into the future. Each instant is a clean, untarnished birth, in which the Son of God emerges from the past into the present. And the present extends forever. It is so beautiful and so clean and free of guilt that nothing but happiness is there. No darkness is remembered, and immortality and joy are *now*. This lesson takes *no* time. For what is time without a past and future? It *has* taken time to misguide you so completely, but it takes no time at all to be what you *are.* Begin to practice the Holy Spirit's use of time as a teaching aid to happiness and peace. Take this very instant, *now*, and think of it as *all there is* of time. Nothing can reach you here out of the past, and it is here that you are *completely* absolved, *completely* free, and *wholly* without condemnation. From this holy instant wherein holiness was born again, you will go forth in time without fear and with no sense of change *with* time. Time is inconceivable without change, yet holiness does not change. Learn from this instant more than merely hell does not exist. In this redeeming instant lies Heaven. And Heaven will not change, for the birth into the holy present is *salvation* from change. Change is an illusion, taught by those who could not see themselves as guiltless. There is no change in Heaven because there is no change in God. In the holy instant in which you see yourself as bright with freedom, you *will* remember God. For remembering Him *is* to remember freedom. Whenever you are tempted to be dispirited by the thought of how long it would take to change your mind so completely, ask yourself, “How long is an instant?” Could you not give so short a time to the Holy Spirit for your salvation? He asks no more, for He has no need of more. It takes far longer to teach you how to be willing to give Him this than for Him to use this tiny instant to offer you the whole of Heaven. In exchange for this instant, He stands ready to give you the remembrance of eternity. You will never give this holy instant to the Holy Spirit on behalf of your release while you are unwilling to give it to your brothers on behalf of *theirs.* For the instant of holiness is shared, and cannot be yours alone. Remember, then, when you are tempted to attack a brother, that *his* instant of release is *yours*. Miracles are the instants of release you offer and will *receive*. They attest to your willingness to *be* released and to offer time to the Holy Spirit for His use of it. How long is an instant? It is as short for your brother as it is for you. Practice giving this blessed instant of freedom to all who are enslaved by time and thus make time their friend *for* them. The Holy Spirit gives their blessed instant to *you* through your giving it. As you give it, He offers it to *you*. Be not unwilling to give what you would receive of Him, for you join with Him in giving. In the crystal cleanness of the release you give is your *instantaneous* escape from guilt. You *must* be holy if you offer holiness. How long is an instant? As long as it takes to reestablish perfect sanity, perfect peace, and perfect love for everyone, for God, and for *yourself*. As long as it takes to remember immortality and your immortal creations who share it with you. As long as it takes to exchange hell for Heaven. Long enough to transcend all of the ego's making and ascend unto your Father. Time is your friend if you leave it to the Holy Spirit to use. He needs but very little to restore God's whole power to you. He Who transcends time for you understands what time is *for*. Holiness lies not in time but in eternity. There never was an instant in which God's Son could lose his purity. His changeless state is beyond time, for his purity remains forever beyond attack and without variability. Time stands still in his holiness and changes not. And so it is no longer time at all. For, caught in the single instant of the eternal sanctity of God's creation, it is transformed into forever. *Give* the eternal instant that eternity may be remembered *for* you in that shining instant of perfect release. Offer the miracle of the holy instant through the Holy Spirit and leave His giving it to you to Him.

The Atonement is *in* time but not *for* time. Being in you, it is eternal. What holds remembrance of God cannot be bound by time. No more are you. For unless God is bound, you *cannot* be. An instant offered to the Holy Spirit is offered to God on your behalf, and in that instant you will awaken gently in Him. In the blessed instant, you will let go all your past learning, and the Holy Spirit will quickly offer you the whole lesson of peace. What can take time, when all the obstacles to learning it have been removed? Truth is so far beyond time that all of it happens at once. For as it was created one, so its oneness depends not on time at all. Do not be concerned with time and fear not the instant of holiness which will remove *all* fear. For the instant of peace is eternal *because* it is wholly without fear. It *will* come, being the lesson God gives you through the Teacher He has appointed to translate time into eternity. Blessed is God's Teacher, Whose joy it is to teach God's holy Son his holiness. His joy is not contained in time. His teaching is for you because His joy is *yours.* Through Him you stand before God's altar, where He gently translates hell into Heaven. For it is only in Heaven that God would have you be. How long can it take to be where God would have you? For you *are* where you have forever been and will forever be. All that you have, you have forever. The blessed instant reaches out to encompass time, as God extends Himself to encompass you. You who have spent days, hours, and even years in chaining your brothers to your egos in an attempt to support it and uphold its weakness, do not perceive the Source of *strength*. In the holy instant, you will unchain *all* your brothers and refuse to support either *their* weakness or your *own*. You do not realize how much you have misused your brothers by seeing them as sources of ego support. As a result, they witness *to* the ego in your perception and *seem* to provide reasons for not letting it go. Yet they are far stronger and much more compelling witnesses for the Holy Spirit. And they support His *strength*. It is, therefore, your choice whether they support the ego or the Holy Spirit in *you*. And you will know which you have chosen by *their* reactions. A Son of God who has been released through the Holy Spirit in a brother, if the release is *complete*, is *always* recognized. He cannot *be* denied. As long as you remain uncertain, it can be only because you have not given complete release. And because of this, you have not given one single instant *completely* to the Holy Spirit. For when you have, you will be *sure* you have. You will be sure because the witness to Him will speak so clearly of Him that you will hear and *understand*. You will doubt until you hear *one* witness whom you have wholly released through the Holy Spirit. And then you will doubt no more. The holy instant has not yet happened to you. Yet it will, and you will recognize it with perfect certainty. No gift of God is recognized in any other way. You can practice the mechanics of the holy instant and will learn much from doing so. Yet its shining and glittering brilliance, which will literally blind you to this world by its own vision, you cannot supply. And here it is, *all* in this instant, complete, accomplished, and given *wholly.* Start now to practice your little part in separating out the holy instant. You will receive very specific instructions as you go along. To learn to separate out this single second and begin to experience it as timeless, is to begin to experience yourself as *not* separate. Fear not that you will not be given help in this. God's Teacher and His lesson will support your strength. It is only your weakness that will depart from you in this practice, for it is the practice of the power of God in you. Use it but for one instant, and you will never deny it again. Who can deny the Presence of what the universe bows to in appreciation and gladness? Before the recognition of the universe which witnesses to It, your doubts *must* disappear.

Be not content with littleness, but be sure you understand what littleness is and why you could never *be* content with it. Littleness is the offering you gave *yourself*. You offered this in place of magnitude, and you *accepted* it. Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness in the strange belief that littleness can content you. When you strive for anything in this world with the belief that it will bring you peace, you are belittling yourself and blinding yourself to glory. Littleness and glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. You will always choose one at the *expense* of the other. Yet what you do not realize each time you choose is that your choice is your evaluation of *yourself*. Choose littleness and you will not have peace, for you will have judged yourself unworthy of it. And whatever you offer as a substitute is much too poor a gift to satisfy you. It is essential that you accept the fact, and accept it gladly, that there is no form of littleness that can *ever* content you. You are free to try as many as you wish, but all you will be doing is to delay your homecoming. For you will be content only in magnitude, which is your home. There is a deep responsibility you owe yourself, and one which you must learn to remember all the time. The lesson will seem hard at first, but you will learn to love it when you realize that it is true and constitutes a tribute to your power. You who have sought and found littleness, remember this: Every decision which you make stems from what you think you *are* and represents the value that you *put* upon yourself. Believe the little can content you, and by limiting yourself, you will not be satisfied. For your function is *not* little, and it is only by finding your function and fulfilling it that you can escape from littleness. There is no doubt about what your function is, for the Holy Spirit *knows* what it is. There is no doubt about its magnitude, for it reaches you through Him *from* Magnitude. You do not have to strive for it because you *have* it. All your striving must be directed *against* littleness, for it *does* require vigilance to protect your magnitude in this world. To hold your magnitude in perfect awareness in a world of littleness is a task the little cannot undertake. Yet it is asked of you in tribute to your magnitude and *not* your littleness. Nor is it asked of you alone. The power of God will support every effort you make on behalf of His dear Son. Search for the little, and you deny yourself His power. God is not willing that His Son be content with less than everything. For He is not content without His Son, and His Son cannot be content with less than his Father has given him. We asked you once before, “Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?” Let this question be asked you by the Holy Spirit in you every time you make a decision. For every decision you make *does* answer this and invites sorrow or joy accordingly. When God gave Himself to you in your creation, He established you as host to Him forever. He has not left you, and you have not left Him. All your attempts to deny His magnitude and make His Son hostage to the ego cannot make little whom God has joined with Him. Every decision you make is for Heaven or for hell and will bring you awareness of what you decided *for*. The Holy Spirit can hold your magnitude, clean of all littleness, clearly and in perfect safety in your minds, untouched by every little gift the world of littleness would offer you. But for this, you cannot side *against* Him in what He wills for you. Decide for God through Him. For littleness and the belief that you can be content with littleness are the decisions you have made about yourself. The power and the glory that lie in you from God are for all who, like you, perceive themselves as little and have deceived themselves into believing that littleness can be blown up by them into a sense of magnitude that can content them. Neither give littleness, nor accept it. All honor is due the host of God. Your littleness deceives you, but your magnitude is of Him Who dwells in you and in Whom you dwell. Touch no one, then, with littleness, in the name of Christ, eternal Host unto His Father. In this season (Christmas), which celebrates the birth of holiness into this world, join with me, who decided for holiness for *you.* It is our task *together* to restore the awareness of magnitude to the host whom God appointed for Himself. It is beyond all your littleness to give the gift of God, but *not* beyond *you*. For God would give Himself *through* you. He reaches from you to everyone and beyond everyone to His Son's creations, but without leaving you. Far beyond your little world but still in you, He extends forever. Yet He brings all his extensions to you as host to Him. Is it a sacrifice to leave littleness behind and wander not in vain? It is not sacrifice to wake to glory. But it *is* a sacrifice to accept anything *less* than glory. Learn that you *must* be worthy of the Prince of Peace, born in you in honor of Him Whose host you are. You know not what love means because you have sought to purchase it with little gifts, thus valuing it too little to be able to understand its magnitude. Love is *not* little, and love dwells in you, for you are host to Him. Before the greatness that lives in you, your poor appreciation of yourself and all the little offerings you have given slip into nothingness. Holy Child of God, when will you learn that *only* holiness can content you and give you peace? Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did. It is *because* I learned for you that you can learn of me. I would but teach you what is yours, so that together we can replace the shabby littleness that binds the host of God to guilt and weakness with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him. My birth in you is your awakening to grandeur. Welcome me not into a manger but into the altar to holiness, where holiness abides in perfect peace. My Kingdom is not of this world because it is in *you.* And you are of your Father. Let us join in honoring you, who must remain forever beyond littleness. Decide with me, who have decided to abide with you. I will as my Father wills, knowing His Will is constant and at peace forever with Itself. You will be content with nothing *but* His Will. Accept no less, remembering that everything I learned is yours. What my Father loves, I love as He does, and I can no more accept it as what it is not than He can. And no more can *you*. When you have learned to accept what you are, you will make no more gifts to offer to yourselves, for you will know you are complete, in need of nothing, and unable to accept *anything* for yourself. But you will gladly give, *having* received. The host of God need not seek to find anything. If you are wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of God and unwilling to attempt to grasp for peace yourself, salvation will be *given* you. Yet think not you can substitute your plan for His. Rather, join with me in His that we may release all those who would be bound, proclaiming together that the Son of God is host to Him. Thus will we let no one forget what *you* would remember. And thus will you remember it. Call forth in everyone only the remembrance of God and of the Heaven that is in him. For where you would help your brother be, there will you think *you* are. Hear not his call for hell and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness. Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me. God's power is forever on the side of His host, for it protects only the peace in which He dwells. Lay not littleness before His holy altar, which rises above the stars and reaches even to Heaven because of what is given it.

This course is not beyond *immediate* learning unless you prefer to believe that what God wills takes time. And this means only that you would *rather* delay the recognition that His Will is so. The holy instant is *this* one and *every* one. The one you *want* it to be it *is*. The one you would not have it be is lost to you. *You* must decide on when it is. Delay it not. For beyond the past and future, in which you will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance. Yet you cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do not want it, for it holds the whole release from littleness. Your practice must therefore rest upon your willingness to let all littleness go. The instant in which magnitude will dawn upon you is but as far away as your *desire* for it. As long as you desire it not and cherish littleness instead, by so much is it far from you. By so much as you want it will you bring it nearer. Think not that you can find salvation in your own way and *have* it. Give over *every* plan that you have made for your salvation in exchange for God's. His will content you, and there is nothing else that can bring you peace. For peace is of God and of no one beside Him. Be humble before Him and yet great *in* Him. And value no plan of the ego before the plan of God. For you leave empty your place in His plan, which you must fulfill if you would join with me, by your decision to join in any plan *but* His. I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom. Every allegiance to a plan of salvation that is apart from Him diminishes the value of His Will for you in your own minds. And yet it is your mind that *is* the host to Him. Would you learn how perfect and immaculate is the holy altar on which your Father has placed Himself? This you will recognize in the holy instant in which you willingly and gladly give over every plan but His. For there lies peace, perfectly clear because you have been willing to meet its conditions. You can claim the holy instant any time and anywhere you want it. In your practice, try to give over every plan you have accepted for finding magnitude in littleness. *It is not there*. Use the holy instant only to recognize that you alone *cannot* know where it is and can only deceive yourself. I stand within the holy instant, as clear as you would have me. And the extent to which you learn to be willing to accept me is the measure of the time in which the holy instant will be yours. I call to you to make the holy instant yours at once, for the release from littleness in the mind of the host of God depends on willingness and *not* on time. The reason why this course is simple is that *truth* is simple. Complexity is of the ego and is nothing more than the ego's attempt to obscure the obvious. You could live forever in the holy instant, *beginning now* and reaching to eternity, but for a very simple reason. Do not obscure the simplicity of this reason, for if you do, it will be only because you prefer not to recognize it and not to let it go. The simple reason, simply stated, is this: The holy instant is a time in which you receive and *give* perfect communication. This means, however, that it is a time in which your mind is *open*, both to receive and give. It is the recognition that all minds *are* in communication. It therefore seeks to *change* nothing, but merely to *accept* everything. How can you do this when you would prefer to have *private* thoughts and *keep* them? The only way you could do *that* is to *deny* the perfect communication that makes the holy instant what it is. You believe that it is possible to harbor thoughts you would not share and that salvation lies in keeping your thoughts to yourself *alone.* For in private thoughts, known only to yourself, you think you find a way to keep what you would *have* alone and share what *you* would share. And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full communication with those around you and with God Who surrounds *all* of you together. Every thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off because you would *have* it so. It is impossible to recognize perfect communication while *breaking* communication holds value to you. Ask yourselves honestly, “Would I *want* to have perfect communication, and am I wholly willing to let everything that interferes with it go forever?” If the answer is no, then the Holy Spirit's readiness to give it to you is not enough to make it yours, for you are not ready to *share* it with Him. And it cannot come into a mind that has decided to oppose it. For the holy instant is given and received with *equal* willingness, being the acceptance of the single will that governs *all* thought. The necessary condition for the holy instant does *not* require that you have no thoughts which are not pure. But it *does* require that you have none that you would *keep*. Innocence is not of your making. It is given you the instant you would *have* it. Yet it would not be Atonement if there were no *need* for Atonement. You will not be able to accept perfect communication as long as you would *hide* it from yourself. For what you would hide *is* hidden from you. In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception and seek not to protect the thoughts you would keep unto yourself. Let the Holy Spirit's purity shine them away and bring all your awareness to the readiness for purity He offers you. Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you *are* host to God and hostage to no one and nothing.

The holy instant is the Holy Spirit's most useful learning device for teaching you love's meaning. For its purpose is to suspend judgment *entirely.* Judgment always rests on the past, for past experience is the basis on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for without it you do not understand anything. You would make no attempt to judge because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know what anything *means.* You are afraid of this because you believe that *without* the ego all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that without the ego all would be *love*. The past is the *ego's* chief learning device, for it is in the past that you learned to define your own needs and acquired methods for meeting them on your own terms. We said before that to limit love to *part* of the Sonship is to bring guilt into your relationships and thus make them unreal. If you seek to separate out certain aspects of the totality and look to them to meet your imagined needs, you are attempting to use separation to *save* you. How, then, could guilt *not* enter? For separation *is* the source of guilt, and to appeal to it for salvation is to believe you are alone. To be alone *is* to be guilty. For to experience yourself as alone is to deny the oneness of the Father and his Son and thus to attack reality. You cannot love parts of reality and understand what love means. If you would love unlike to God, Who *knows* no special love, how *can* you understand it? To believe that *special* relationships, with *special* love, can offer you salvation is the belief that separation *is* salvation. For it is the complete *equality* of the Atonement in which salvation lies. How can you decide that special aspects of the Sonship can give you more than others? The *past* has taught you this. Yet the holy instant teaches you *it is not so*. Because of guilt, *all* special relationships have some elements of fear in them. And this is why they shift and change so frequently. They are not based on changeless love alone. And love where fear has entered cannot be depended on because it is not perfect. In His function as Interpreter of what you have made, the Holy Spirit *uses* special relationships, which *you* have chosen to support the ego, as a learning experience which points to truth. Under His teaching, *every* relationship becomes a lesson in love. The Holy Spirit knows no one is special. Yet He also perceives that you have *made* special relationships, which He would purify and not let you destroy. However unholy the reason why you made them may be, He can translate them into holiness by removing as much fear as you will let Him. You can place any relationship under His care and be sure that it will not result in pain if you offer Him your willingness to have it serve no need but His. All the guilt in it arises from *your* use of it. All the love from His. Do not, then, be afraid to let go your imagined needs, which would destroy the relationship. Your *only* need is His. Any relationship which you would substitute for another has not been offered to the Holy Spirit for His use. There *is* no substitute for love. If you would attempt to substitute one aspect of love for another, you have placed *less* value on one and *more* on the other. You have not only *separated* them, but you have also judged against *both*. Yet you had judged against yourself first, or you would never have imagined that you needed them as they were not. Unless you had seen yourself as *without* love, you could not have judged them so like you in lack. The ego's use of relationships is so fragmented that it frequently goes even further—one part of one aspect suits its purposes, while it prefers different parts of another aspect. Thus does it assemble reality to its own capricious liking, offering for your seeking a picture whose likeness does not exist. For there is nothing in Heaven or earth that it resembles, and so however much you seek for its reality, you cannot find it because it is not real. Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here. In the holy instant no one is special, for your personal needs intrude on no one to make them different. Without the values from the past, you *would* see them all the same and like *yourself*. Nor would you see any separation between yourself and them. In the holy instant, you see in each relationship what it *will* be when you perceive only the present. God knows you *now*. He remembers nothing, having *always* known you exactly as He knows you now. The holy instant parallels His knowing by bringing *all* perception out of the past, thus removing the frame of reference you have built by which to judge your brothers. Once this is gone, the Holy Spirit substitutes His frame of reference for it. His frame of reference is simply God. The Holy Spirit's timelessness lies only here. For in the holy instant, free of the past, you see that love is in you, and you have no need to look *without* and snatch it guiltily from where you thought it was. *All* your relationships are blessed in the holy instant because the blessing is not limited. In the holy instant, the Sonship gains *as one*. And united in your blessing, it *becomes* one to you. The meaning of love is the meaning God gave to it. Give to it any meaning *apart* from His, and it is impossible to understand it. Every brother God loves as He loves you—neither less nor more. He needs them all equally, and so do *you.* In time you have been told to offer miracles as Christ directs and let the Holy Spirit bring to you those who are seeking you. Yet in the holy instant, you unite directly with God, and *all* your brothers join in Christ. Those who are joined in Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is the Self the Sonship shares, as God shares His Self with Christ. Think you that you can judge the Self of God? God has created it *beyond* judgment out of His need to extend His Love. With love in you, you have no need *except* to extend it. In the holy instant, there is no conflict of needs, for there is only *one*. For the holy instant reaches to eternity and to the Mind of God. And it is only there love *has* meaning, and only there *can* it be understood. It is impossible to use one relationship at the expense of another and *not* suffer guilt. And it is equally impossible to condemn part of a relationship and find peace *within* it. Under the Holy Spirit's teaching, *all* relationships are seen as total commitments, yet they do not conflict with one another in any way. Perfect faith in each one for its ability to satisfy you *completely* arises only from perfect faith in *yourself*. And this you cannot have while guilt remains. And there *will* be guilt as long as you accept the possibility, and *cherish* it, that you can make a brother what he is not because *you* would have him so. You have so little faith in yourself because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect love is in *you*. And so you seek without for what you cannot *find* without. I offer you my perfect faith in you in place of all your doubt. But forget not that my faith must be as perfect in all your brothers as it is in you, or it would be a limited gift to *you.* In the holy instant, we share our faith in God's Son because we recognize together that he is wholly worthy of it, and in our appreciation of his worth, we *cannot* doubt his holiness. And so we love him.

All separation vanishes as holiness is shared. For holiness is power, and by sharing it, it *gains* in strength. If you seek for satisfaction in gratifying your needs as *you* perceive them, you must believe that strength comes from another, and what *you* gain *he loses*. Someone must *always* lose if you perceive yourself as weak. Yet there is another interpretation of relationships which transcends the concept of loss of power completely. You do not find it difficult to believe that, when another calls on God for love, *your* call remains as strong. Nor do you think that, by God's answer to him, *your* hope of answer is diminished. On the contrary, you are far more inclined to regard his success as witness to the possibility of *yours*. That is because you recognize, however dimly, that God is an *idea*, and so your faith in Him is *strengthened* by sharing. What you find difficult to accept is the fact that, like your Father, *you* are an idea. And like Him, you can give yourself completely, *wholly* without loss, and *only* with gain. Herein lies peace, for here there *is* no conflict. In the world of scarcity, love has no meaning, and peace is impossible. For gain and loss are *both* accepted, and so no one is aware that perfect love is in him. In the holy instant, you recognize the *idea* of love in you and unite this idea with the mind that thought it and could not *relinquish* it. By holding it within itself, there *was* no loss. The holy instant thus becomes a lesson in how to hold all of your brothers in your mind, experiencing not loss, but *completion*. From this it follows you can *only* give. And this *is* love, for this alone is natural under the laws of God. In the holy instant, the laws of God prevail, and only they have meaning. The laws of this world cease to hold any meaning at all. When the Son of God accepts the laws of God as what he gladly wills, it is impossible that he be bound or limited in any way. In this instant, he is as free as God would have him be. For the instant he *refuses* to be bound, he is *not* bound. In the holy instant, nothing happens that has not always been. Only the veil that has been drawn *across* reality is lifted. Nothing has changed. Yet the *awareness* of changelessness comes swiftly as the veil of time is pushed aside. No one who has not yet experienced the lifting of the veil and felt himself drawn irresistibly into the light behind it can have faith in love *without* fear. Yet the Holy Spirit *gives* you this faith because He offered it to me and I *accepted* it. Fear not the holy instant will be denied you, for I denied it not. And through me the Holy Spirit gave it unto you, as *you* will give it. Let no need that you perceive obscure your need of this. For in the holy instant, you will recognize the only need the aspects of the Son of God share equally, and by this recognition you will join with me in *offering* what is needed. It is through *us* that peace will come. Join me in the *idea* of peace, for in ideas minds *can* communicate. If you would give *yourself* as your Father gives His Self, you will learn to understand Selfhood. And therein is love's meaning understood. But remember that understanding is of the *mind* and *only* of the mind. Knowledge is therefore of the mind, and its conditions are in the mind with it. If you were not only an idea and *nothing else*, you could not be in full communication with all that ever was. Yet as long as you *prefer* to be something else, or would attempt to be nothing else and something else *together*, the language of communication, which you know perfectly, you will not remember. In the holy instant God is remembered, and the language of communication with all your brothers is remembered with Him. For communication is remembered *together*, as is truth. There is no exclusion in the holy instant because the past is gone and with it goes the whole *basis* for exclusion. Without its source, exclusion vanishes. And this permits *your* Source and that of all your brothers to replace it in your awareness. God and the power of God will take their rightful place in you, and you will experience the full communication of ideas with ideas. Through your ability to do this, you will learn what you *must* be, for you will begin to understand what your Creator is and what His creation is along with Him.

Beyond the poor attraction of the special love relationship and *always* obscured by it is the powerful attraction of the Father for His Son. There is no other love that can satisfy you, because there *is* no other love. This is the *only* love that is fully given and fully returned. Being complete, it asks nothing. Being wholly pure, everyone joined in it *has* everything. This is not the basis for *any* relationship in which the ego enters. For every relationship on which the ego embarks *is* special. The ego establishes relationships only to *get* something. And it would keep the giver bound to itself through guilt. It is impossible for the ego to enter into any relationship without anger, for the ego believes that anger makes *friends.* This is not its statement, but it *is* its purpose. For the ego really *believes* that it can get and keep *by making guilty*. This is its *one* attraction; an attraction so weak that it would have no hold at all, except that no one *recognizes* it. For the ego always *seems* to attract through love and has no attraction at all to anyone who perceives that it attracts through *guilt.* The sick attraction of guilt must be recognized for what it *is*. For having been made real to you, it is essential to look at it clearly, and by withdrawing your *investment* in it, to learn to let it go. No one would choose to let go what he believes has value. Yet the attraction of guilt has value to you only because you have *not* looked at what it is and have judged it completely in the dark. As we bring it to light, your only question will be why it was you *ever* wanted it. You have nothing to lose by looking open-eyed at this, for ugliness such as this belongs not in your holy mind. The host of God *can* have no real investment here. We said before that the ego attempts to maintain and increase guilt, but in such a way that you do not recognize what it would do to *you*. For it is the ego's fundamental doctrine that what you do to others, *you have escaped.* The ego wishes *no one* well. Yet its survival depends on your belief that *you* are exempt from its evil intentions. It counsels, therefore, that if you are host to *it*, it will enable you to direct the anger that it holds outward, thus *protecting* you. And thus it embarks on an endless, unrewarding chain of special relationships, forged out of anger and dedicated to but one insane belief—that the more anger you invest *outside* yourself, the safer *you* become. It is this chain that binds the Son of God to guilt, and it is this chain the Holy Spirit would remove from his holy mind. For the chain of savagery belongs not around the chosen host of God, who *cannot* make himself host to the ego. In the name of his release, and in the name of Him Who would release him, let us look more closely at the relationships which the ego contrives and let the Holy Spirit judge them truly. For it is certain that, if you will *look* at them, you will offer them gladly to Him. What *He* can make of them, you do not know, but you will become willing to find out if you are willing, first, to perceive what *you* have made of them. In one way or another, every relationship which the ego makes is based on the idea that by *sacrificing* itself, it becomes *bigger*. The “sacrifice,” which it regards as purification, is actually the root of its bitter resentment. For it would much prefer to attack directly and avoid delaying what it *really* wants. Yet the ego acknowledges “reality” as it sees it and recognizes that no one could interpret *direct* attack as love. Yet to make guilty *is* direct attack but does not *seem* to be. For the guilty *expect* attack, and having *asked* for it, they are *attracted* to it. In these insane relationships, the attraction of what you do not want seems to be much stronger than the attraction of what you *do.* For each one thinks that he has sacrificed something to the other and *hates* him for it. Yet this is what he thinks he *wants*. He is not in love with the other at all. He merely believes he is in love with *sacrifice.* And for this sacrifice, which he demanded of *himself*, he demands the *other* accept the guilt and sacrifice himself as well. Forgiveness becomes impossible, for the ego believes that to forgive another is to *lose* him. For it is only by attack *without* forgiveness that the ego can ensure the guilt which holds all its relationships together. Yet they only *seem* to be together. For relationships, to the ego, mean only that *bodies* are together. It is always physical closeness that the ego demands, and it does not object where the *mind* goes or what *it* thinks, for this seems unimportant. As long as the body is there to receive its sacrifice, it is content. To the ego, the mind is private, and only the *body* can be shared. Ideas are basically of no concern, except as they draw the body of another closer or farther. And it is in these terms that it evaluates ideas as good or bad. What makes another guilty and *holds* him through guilt is “good.” What *releases* him from guilt is “bad,” because he would no longer believe that bodies communicate, and so he would be “gone.” Suffering and sacrifice are the gifts with which the ego would “bless” all unions. And those who are united at its altar *accept* suffering and sacrifice as the price of union. In their angry alliances, born of the fear of loneliness and yet dedicated to the *continuance* of loneliness, they seek relief from guilt by increasing it in the *other*. For they believe that this decreases it in *them*. The other seems always to be attacking and wounding them, perhaps in little ways, perhaps “unconsciously,” yet never without demand of sacrifice. The fury of those joined at the ego's altar far exceeds your awareness of it. For what the ego *really* wants, you do not realize. Whenever you are angry, you can be sure that you have formed a special relationship which the ego has “blessed,” for anger *is* its blessing. Anger takes many forms, but it cannot long deceive those who will learn that love brings no guilt at all, and what brings guilt cannot be love and *must* be anger. *All* anger is nothing more than an attempt to make someone feel guilty, and this attempt is the *only* basis which the ego accepts for special relationships. Guilt is the only need the ego has, and as long as you identify with it, guilt will *remain* attractive to you. Yet remember this—to be with a body is *not* communication. And if you think it is, you will feel guilty about communication and will be *afraid* to hear the Holy Spirit, recognizing in His voice your *own* need to communicate. The Holy Spirit *cannot* teach through fear. And how can He communicate with you while you believe that to communicate is to make yourself *alone*? It is clearly insane to believe that by communicating you will be abandoned. And yet you *do* believe it. For you think that your minds must be kept private or you will *lose* them, and if your *bodies* are together your minds remain your own. The union of bodies thus becomes the way in which you would keep *minds* apart. For bodies cannot forgive. They can only do as the mind directs. The illusion of the autonomy of the body and *its* ability to overcome loneliness is but the working of the ego's plan to establish its *own* autonomy. As long as you believe that to be with a body is companionship, you will be compelled to attempt to keep your brother in his body, held there by guilt. And you will see *safety* in guilt and *danger* in communication. For the ego will *always* teach that loneliness is solved by guilt and that communication is the *cause* of loneliness. And despite the evident insanity of this lesson, you have *learned* it. Forgiveness lies in communication as surely as damnation lies in guilt. It is the Holy Spirit's teaching function to instruct those who believe that communication is damnation that communication is *salvation*. And He will do so, for the power of God in Him *and* you is joined in *real* relationship, so holy and so strong that it can overcome even *this* without fear. It is through the holy instant that what seems impossible is *accomplished*, making it evident that it is *not* impossible. In the holy instant, guilt holds *no* attraction, since communication has been restored. And guilt, whose *only* purpose is to disrupt communication, has no function here. Here there is no concealment and no private thoughts. The willingness to communicate attracts communication *to* it and overcomes loneliness completely. There is complete forgiveness here, for there is no desire to exclude anyone from your completion in sudden recognition of the value of his part in it. In the protection of *your* wholeness, all are invited and made welcome. And you understand that your completion is God's, Whose only need is to have *you* be complete. For your completion makes you His in your awareness. And here it is that you experience yourself as you were created and as you *are*.

The holy instant does not replace the need for learning, for the Holy Spirit must not leave you as your Teacher until the holy instant has extended far beyond time. For a teaching assignment such as His, He must use everything in this world for your release. He must side with every sign or token of your willingness to learn of Him what the truth must be. He is swift to utilize whatever you offer Him on behalf of this. His concern and care for you are limitless. In the face of your *fear* of forgiveness, which He perceives as clearly as He knows forgiveness is *release*, He will teach you to remember that forgiveness is not loss but your *salvation*. And that in *complete* forgiveness, in which you recognize that there is nothing to forgive, *you* are absolved completely. Hear Him gladly and learn of Him that you have need of no special relationships at all. You but seek in them what you have thrown away. And through them you will never learn the value of what you have cast aside but what you still desire with all your hearts. Let us join together in making the holy instant all that there is by desiring that it *be* all that there is. God's Son has such great need of your willingness to strive for this that you cannot conceive of need so great. Behold the only need that God and His Son share and will to meet together. You are not alone in this. The will of your creations calls to you to share your will with them. Turn, then, in peace from guilt to God and them. Relate only with what will *never* leave you and what *you* can never leave. The loneliness of God's Son is the loneliness of his Father. Refuse not the awareness of your completion and seek not to restore it to yourselves. Fear not to give redemption over to your Redeemer's love. He will not fail you, for He comes from One Who *cannot* fail. Accept *your* sense of failure as nothing more than a mistake in who you are. For the holy host of God is beyond failure, and nothing that he wills can *be* denied. You are forever in a relationship so holy that it calls to everyone to escape from loneliness and join you in your love. And where you are must everyone seek and *find* you there. Think but an instant on this: God gave the Sonship to you to ensure your perfect creation. This was His gift, for as He withheld Himself not from you, He withheld not His creation. Nothing that ever was created but is yours. Your relationships are with the universe. And this universe, being of God, is far beyond the petty sum of all the separate bodies *you* perceive. For all its parts are joined in God through Christ, where they become like to their Father. For Christ knows of no separation from His Father, Who is His one relationship, in which He gives as His Father gives to Him. The Holy Spirit is God's attempt to free you of what He does not understand. And because of the Source of the attempt, it will *succeed*. The Holy Spirit asks you to respond as God does, for He would teach you what *you* do not understand. God would respond to *every* need, whatever form it takes. And so He has kept this channel open to receive His communication to you and yours to Him. God does not understand your problem in communication, for He does not share it with you. It is only you who believe that it *is* understandable. The Holy Spirit knows that it is not understandable, and yet He understands it because you have *made* it. In Him alone lies the awareness of what God cannot know and what you do not understand. It is His holy function to accept them both, and by removing every element of disagreement, to join them into one. He will do this *because* it is His function. Leave, then, what seems to you to be impossible to Him Who knows it *must* be possible because it is the Will of God. And let Him Whose teaching is *only* of God teach you the *only* meaning of relationships. For God created the only relationship which has meaning, and that is His relationship with *you*. As the ego would limit your perception of your brothers to the body, so would the Holy Spirit release your vision and let you see the Great Rays shining from them, so unlimited that they reach to God. It is this shift in vision which is accomplished in the holy instant. Yet it is needful for you to learn just what this shift entails, so you will become willing to make it permanent. Given this willingness, it will not leave you, for it *is* permanent. For once you have accepted it as the only perception you *want*, it is translated into knowledge by the part which God Himself plays in the Atonement, for it is the only step in it He understands. Therefore, in this there will be no delay when you are ready for it. God is ready *now*, but *you* are not. Our task is but to continue as fast as possible the necessary process of looking straight at all the interference and seeing it *exactly* as it is. For it is impossible to recognize as wholly *without* gratification what you think you *want*. The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of the separation. And both are nothing more than attempts to limit communication and thereby to make it impossible. For communication must be unlimited in order to have meaning, and *deprived* of meaning, it will not satisfy you completely. Yet it remains the only means by which you can establish real relationships. Real relationships *have* no limits, having been established by God. In the holy instant, where the Great Rays *replace* the body in awareness, the recognition of relationships without limits is given you. But to see this, it is necessary to give up every use the ego has for the body and to accept the fact that the ego has *no* purpose you would share with it. For the ego would limit everyone to a body for *its* purposes, and while you think it *has* a purpose, you will choose to utilize the means by which *it* tries to turn its purpose into accomplishment. This will never *be* accomplished. Yet you have surely recognized that the ego, whose goals are altogether unattainable, will strive for them with all its might and will do so with the strength which *you* have given it. It is impossible to divide your strength between Heaven and hell, God and the ego, and release your power unto creation, which is the only purpose for which it was given you. Love would *always* give increase. Limits are demanded by the ego, representing its demands to make little and ineffectual. Limit your vision of a brother to his body, which you *will* do as long as you would not release him from it, and you have denied his gift to *you*. His body *cannot* give it. And seek it not through *yours*. Yet your minds are *already* continuous, and their union need only be accepted, and the loneliness in Heaven is gone. If you would but let the Holy Spirit tell you of the Love of God for you and the need your creations have to be with you forever, you would experience the attraction of the eternal. No one can hear Him speak of this and long remain willing to linger here. For it *is* your will to be in Heaven, where you are complete and quiet in such sure and loving relationships that *any* limit is impossible. Would you not exchange your little relationships for this? For the body *is* little and limited, and only those whom you would see *without* the limits the ego would impose on them can offer you the gift of freedom. You have no conception of the limits you have placed on your perception and no idea of all the loveliness that you could see. But this you must remember—the attraction of guilt *opposes* the attraction of God. His attraction for you remains unlimited, but because your power, being His, is as great as His, you can turn away from love. What you invest in guilt, you withdraw from God. And your sight grows weak and dim and limited, for you have attempted to separate the Father from the Son and limit their communication. Seek not Atonement in *further* separation. And limit not your vision of God's Son to what *interferes* with his release and what the Holy Spirit must *undo* to set him free. For his belief in limits *has* imprisoned him. When the body ceases to attract you and when you place no value on it as a means for getting *anything*, then there will be no interference in communication, and your thoughts will be as free as God's. As you let the Holy Spirit teach you how to use the body *only* for purposes of communication and renounce its use for separation and attack which the ego sees in it, you will learn you have no need of a body at all. In the holy instant there *are* no bodies, and you experience only the attraction of God. Accepting it as undivided, you join Him wholly in an instant. \[For you would place *no* limits on your union *with* Him.\] The reality of this relationship becomes the only truth that you could ever *want*. All truth *is* here.

It *is* in your power in *time* to delay the perfect union of the Father and the Son. For in this world, the attraction of guilt *does* stand between them. Neither time nor season means anything in eternity. But here it is the Holy Spirit's function to use them both, though not as the ego uses them. This is the season when you would celebrate my birth into the world. Yet you know not how to do it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you, and let me celebrate *your* birth through Him. The only gift I can accept of you is the gift I *gave* to you. Release *me* as I will *your* release. The time of Christ we celebrate *together*, for it has no meaning if we are apart. The holy instant is truly the time of Christ. For in this liberating instant, no guilt is laid upon the Son of God, and his unlimited power is thus restored to him. What other gift can you offer me, when only this I will to offer *you*? And to see me is to see me in everyone and offer everyone the gift you offer me. I am as incapable of receiving sacrifice as God is, and every sacrifice you ask of yourself, you ask of me. Learn *now* that sacrifice of any kind is nothing but a limitation imposed on giving. And by this limitation, you have limited acceptance of the gift I offer *you*. We who are one *cannot* give separately. When you are willing to accept *our* relationship as real, guilt will hold *no* attraction for you. For in our union, you will accept *all* of our brothers. The gift of union is the only gift that I was born to give. Give it to me, that *you* may have it. The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone. And by *your* acceptance of it, you have *offered* it to everyone. It *is* in your power to make this season holy, for it is in your power to make the time of Christ be *now*. It is possible to do this all at once because there is but *one* shift in perception that is necessary, for you made but *one* mistake. It seems like many, but it is all the same. For though the ego takes many forms, it is *always* the same idea. What is not love is *always* fear and nothing else. It is not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground and hides in darkness, to emerge in forms quite different from what it is. Yet it *is* necessary to examine each one as long as you would retain the *principle* which governs all of them. When you are willing to regard them not as separate but as different manifestations of the *same* idea, and one you do not *want*, they go together. The idea is simply this—you believe that it is possible to be host to the ego or hostage to God. This is the choice you think you have, and the decision which you believe that you must make. You see no other alternatives, for you cannot accept the fact that sacrifice gets *nothing*. Sacrifice is so essential to your thought system that salvation *apart* from sacrifice means nothing to you. Your confusion of sacrifice and love is so profound that you cannot conceive of love *without* sacrifice. And it is this that you must look upon—sacrifice is *attack*, not love. If you would accept but this *one* idea, your fear of love would vanish. Guilt *cannot* last when the idea of sacrifice has been removed. For if there is sacrifice, as you are convinced, someone must pay and someone must get. And the only question which remains to be decided is *how much* is the price for getting *what*. As host to the ego, you believe that you can give *all* your guilt away *whatever* you think and purchase peace. And the payment does not seem to be *yours*. While it is obvious that the ego *does* demand payment, it never seems to be demanding it of *you*. For you are unwilling to recognize that the ego, which you invited, is treacherous only to those who think they are its host. The ego will never let you perceive this, since this recognition would make it homeless. For when this recognition dawns clearly, you will not be deceived by *any* form the ego takes to protect itself from your sight. Each form will be recognized as but a cover for the one idea that hides behind them all—that love demands sacrifice and is therefore inseparable from attack and fear. And that guilt is the *price* of love, which must be paid *by* fear. How fearful, then, has God become to you, and how great a sacrifice do you believe His Love demands! For total love would demand total sacrifice. And so the ego seems to demand less of you than God, and of the two is judged as the lesser of two evils, one to be feared a little, but the other to be destroyed. For you see love as *destructive*, and your only question is who is to be destroyed, you or another? You seek to answer this question in your special relationships, in which you are both destroyer and destroyed in part, but with the idea of being able to be neither completely. And this you think saves you from God, Whose total love would completely destroy you. You think that everyone *outside* yourself demands your sacrifice, but you do not see that *only* you demand sacrifice and *only* of yourself. Yet the demand of sacrifice is so savage and so fearful that you *cannot* accept it where it is. But the *real* price of not accepting this has been so great that you have given God away rather than look at it. For if God would demand total sacrifice of you, you thought it safer to project Him outward and *away* from you and not be host to Him. To Him you ascribed the ego's treachery, inviting it to take His place to *protect* you from Him. And you do not recognize that it is what *you* invited in that would destroy you and *does* demand total sacrifice of you. No partial sacrifice will appease this savage guest, for it is an invader who but *seems* to offer kindness, but always to make the sacrifice complete. You will not succeed in being partial hostage to the ego, for it keeps no bargains and would leave you nothing. \[Nor can you be partial *host* to it.\] You will have to choose between *total* freedom and *total* bondage, for there are no alternatives but these. You have tried many compromises in the attempt to avoid recognizing the one decision which must be made. And yet it is the recognition of the decision *just as it is* that makes the decision so easy! Salvation is simple, being of God and therefore very easy to understand. Do not try to project it from you and see it *outside* yourself. In you are both the question and the answer—the demand for sacrifice and the peace of God.

Fear not to recognize the whole idea of sacrifice as *solely* of your making. And seek not safety by attempting to protect yourself from where it is not. Your brothers and your Father have become very fearful to you. And you would bargain with them for a few special relationships in which you think you see some scraps of safety. Do not try longer to keep apart your thoughts and the Thought that has been given you. When they are brought together and perceived where they *are*, the choice between them is nothing more than a gentle awakening and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight when you have no more need of sleep. The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself but shining in the Heaven within and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. He comes demanding *nothing*. No sacrifice of any kind of anyone is asked by Him. In His Presence, the whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning. For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is there *already*, by recognizing that His Host is One, and no thought alien to His Oneness can abide with Him there. Love must be total to give Him welcome, for the Presence of Holiness *creates* the holiness which surrounds it. No fear can touch the host who cradles God in the time of Christ, for the Host is as holy as the Perfect Innocence which He protects and Whose power protects Him. This Christmas, give the Holy Spirit *everything* that would hurt you. *Let* yourself be healed completely that you may join with Him in healing, and let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us. Leave nothing behind, for release is total, and when you have accepted it with me, you will *give* it with me. All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in our relationship, which is as innocent as our relationship with our Father, and as powerful. Pain will be brought to us and disappear in our presence, and without pain there can *be* no sacrifice. And without sacrifice, there love *must* be. You who believe that sacrifice *is* love must learn that sacrifice is *separation* from love. For sacrifice brings guilt as surely as love brings peace. Guilt is the *condition* of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God. Through guilt you exclude your Father and your brothers from yourself. Through peace you invite them back and realize that they are where your invitation bids them be. What you excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you endowed it with fear and tried to cast it out though it was part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome and live within himself in peace? And who can try to resolve the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell in him by casting Heaven out and giving it the attributes of hell without experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely? As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside *without* a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to *restore* himself? Yet how could you accomplish this yourselves when the basis of your attempts is the belief in the *reality* of the deprivation? For deprivation breeds attack, being the belief that attack *is* justified. And as long as you would retain the deprivation, attack becomes salvation, and sacrifice becomes love. So is it that in all your seeking for love, you seek for sacrifice and *find* it. Yet you find not love. It is impossible to deny what love is and still *recognize* it. The meaning of love lies in what you have cast *outside* yourself, and it has no meaning at all apart from you. It is what you preferred to *keep* that has no meaning, while all that you would keep *away* holds all the meaning of the universe and holds the universe together in its meaning. For unless the universe were joined in *you*, it would be apart from God, and to be without Him *is* to be without meaning. In the holy instant, the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body's interference, and where there is communication, there is peace. The Prince of Peace was born to reestablish the condition of love by teaching that communication remains unbroken, even if the body is destroyed, provided that you see not the body as the *necessary* means of communication. And if you understand this lesson, you will realize that to sacrifice the body is to sacrifice *nothing*, and communication, which *must* be of the mind, cannot be sacrificed. Where, then, *is* sacrifice? The lesson I was born to teach and still would teach to all my brothers is that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere. For communication embraces *everything*, and in the peace it re-establishes, love comes of itself. Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy. Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone, for so will you offer me the love I offer you. What can be more joyous than to perceive we are deprived of *nothing*? Such is the message of the time of Christ, which I give you that *you* may give it and return it to the Father, Who gave it to me. For in the time of Christ, communication is restored, and He joins us in the celebration of His Son's creation. God offers thanks to the holy host who would receive Him and let Him enter and abide where He would be. And by your welcome does He welcome you into Himself, for what is contained in you who welcome Him is *returned* to Him. And we but celebrate His Wholeness as we welcome Him into ourselves. Those who receive the Father are one with Him, being host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of the Father enters with Him, and with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had and ever *want to have*. This is the weekend in which a new year will be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and *not* destroy. Say and understand this: *I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself. I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison **myself.** In the name of **my** freedom I will your release, Because I recognize that we will be released **together**.* So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different by making it all the *same.* And let *all* your relationships be made holy *for* you. This is our will. Amen.