Pdf downloadTranscript from Live Session with Tim in the Sanctuary at the Miracles Healing Center, Wisconsin, USA (March 7, 2013) A few small edits have been made for better reading.
It’s great to be here, I mean, I love this moment. This is finally the moment that has been prophesized and is now being fulfilled, is it not? The answer cannot not be ‘yes’ unless you say otherwise, right? This is the moment, not some other moment. You don’t have something else. This is whatever the association is in your mind individually. You have an association, you have a relationship with yourself, do you not? You have a relationship with yourself. You cannot avoid it. You can do whatever you want with it but in this moment the instruction is that you only have a relationship with yourself. And that is either a relationship with a self-construct projected from your mind for the purpose of denying your own eternal life, or you have an association with your Father who has created you perfectly, and that is reflected to you everywhere. Am I on the right page? So this is your association with yourself, whether you like it or not. Whether you like the way it acts, looks, walks, or whether you don’t like it. That’s why you need a whole training program do you not? To bring about the absolute simplicity of an act of complete forgiveness. I mean, I’m only talking about myself. The last thing you want to do in fact is to forgive, because in order to forgive you would have to lay down your self which has inherently all kinds of ideas about the situation in which it finds itself. Judgment. Finally you would have to go ‘Oh my God’ – I am the obstacle to the goal that I desire – the memory of the peace of God. So that’s a great place to start isn’t it? This is the moment. This is the moment, so thank you.
Does it disappear? Well, what kind of a question is that anyway? – That’s great, thank you. So there’s two parts to that, one is that I know nothing until it is complete in me, and the other part is – it is complete in me! Either you’re coming to that or you’re standing in that, but as the Master Teacher reminded me, this is a continual re-association of myself with myself; with my resurrected Self – it’s moment-to-moment. There’s no attainment, because attainment always slips into the past, doesn’t it? Whatever the experience was yesterday, you still have yourself to deal with today in this moment. And that’s why I love it. Good. Thank you – you look beautiful.
This is chapter 23 “The War Against Yourself.” I love this because you say “yes I want it!” We’re inherently fraudulent. You say “yes, I want it, I want it” and the next thing you know, you’re doing the exact opposite. “I’m going to remember the lesson..” You close the book and you immediately find yourself asking ”What the heck was the lesson?”
You do have to change. No matter how much you can repeat the lesson as a mantra “I am not a body I am free, I am still as God created me,” you still have to change fundamentally. That change has to occur, and that change will be a change of behaviour and everything, won’t it? It’ll be a transformation of identity.
It still is true that the attraction of guilt opposes the attraction of God. What is this the ‘obstacles’ to? This is recognizing the obstacles to the eternal peace of God within my own mind, isn’t it? That I’m unmanageably attracted to the forms and idols of guilt and death that I have projected seemingly outside of myself. The attraction of the flesh, the idolization of the body, the concern for the body that you occupy your mind with. You know, you cannot avoid the curriculum, that’s why it’s a required course, isn’t it? I love it – it’s the first sentence – “This is a course in miracles, it’s a required course” I don’t care how much light is shining out of your rear end, you still have a curriculum that you must undergo, you can’t avoid it, you can’t skip the steps. ‘Oh, I want to be a big teacher and teach the world. I’m going to go to Tierra del Fuego (or somewhere) and convert all the natives. No, you know what? You’re still going to be presented with the insanity of your own mind. And that’s the lesson for today, that you are the one in there with the responsibility for what’s happening in your mind are you not? And that you have the power to make a decision to relinquish, to forgive, to cease to judge, to recognize attack thoughts and decide that you don’t want them, is that right? Is that lesson 23? What does lesson 23 say? “I can escape from the world I see..” How? One way only, “by giving up attack thoughts.” Is that what forgiveness is? Yes! Why is that true? Because I’m only attacking myself. I’m only forgiving myself. Okay. Well, I just want to make sure that I’ve got it, I mean that’s why you came here isn’t it? I’ve got to check myself out and make sure I’m still on the right page with you.
This is Chapter 23, section 4, entitled “Above the Battleground.” It’s such a great lesson. Oh, I’m going to go back to section 3. I just turned the page and it said “Salvation without compromise!”
“Is it not true you do not recognize some of the forms attack can take? If it is true attack in any form will hurt you, and will do so just as much as in another form that you do recognize, then it must follow that you do not always recognize the source of pain. Attack in any form is equally destructive. Its purpose does not change. Its sole intent is murder, and what form of murder serves to cover the massive guilt and frantic fear of punishment the murderer must feel? He may deny he is a murderer and justify his savagery with smiles as he attacks. Yet he will suffer, and will look on his intent in nightmares where the smiles are gone, and where the purpose rises to meet his horrified awareness and pursue him still. For no one thinks of murder and escapes the guilt the thought entails. If the intent is death, what matter the form it takes?”
I didn’t know I was going to read that. That’s great! Jesus is very graphic, as you know.
“Above the battleground – Do not remain in conflict, for there is no war without attack. The fear of God is not the fear of death, it is the fear of Life!”
That’s just such a great reminder to me. There is only energy right? All you’re afraid of is coming alive! If you came alive you couldn’t possibly be a body. The body is designed for a strange purpose.
“Yet God remains the only place of safety. In Him is no attack, and no illusion in any form stalks Heaven. Heaven is wholly true. No difference enters, and what is all the same cannot conflict. You are not asked to fight against your wish to murder. But you are asked to realize the form it takes conceals the same intent. And it is this you fear, and not the form. What is not love is murder. What is not loving must be an attack. Every illusion is an assault on truth, and every one does violence to the idea of love because it seems to be of equal truth.“
Paragraph 4:
“Each form of murder and attack that still attracts you that you do not recognize for what it is, limits the healing and the miracles you have the power to extend to all… This is your part; to realize that murder in any form is not your will. The overlooking of the battleground is now your purpose.”
Yes, it’s a required course. The reason the first 7 lessons exist as they are is perfectly clearly because the perception of a human being is what attack and murder is. What is it but an attempt to verify what you made as an alternative, as a substitute for your own eternal reality in God? What? What else is murder and attack except an attempt to crucify the Son of God? That’s what human perception is, it’s an attack on everyone and everything, isn’t it?! I’m reading directly from the workbook. Yes or no? No wonder it’s a required course! That’s why you don’t associate with human beings – you cannot. Amazing. It’s amazing! But it’s the power given to you in your perceptual relationship in a reflection that you have with yourself in space and time, right? Does it sound a little bit like a course in miracles yet? I hope so.
“Be lifted up, and from a higher place look down upon it. From there will your perspective be quite different. Here in the midst of it, it does seem real. Here you have chosen to be part of it. Here murder is your choice. Yet from above, the choice is miracles instead of murder. And the perspective coming from this choice shows you the battle is not real, and easily escaped. Bodies may battle, but the clash of forms is meaningless. And it is over when you realize it never was begun. How can a battle be perceived as nothingness when you engage in it? How can the truth of miracles be recognized if murder is your choice?
When the temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember you can see the battle from above. Even in forms you do not recognize, the signs you know. There is a stab of pain, a twinge of guilt, and above all, a loss of peace. This you know well. When they occur leave not your place on high, but quickly choose a miracle instead of murder. And God Himself and all the lights of Heaven will gently lean to you, and hold you up. For you have chosen to remain where He would have you, and no illusion can attack the peace of God together with His Son.
See no one from the battleground, for there you look on him from nowhere. You have no reference point from where to look, where meaning can be given what you see. For only bodies could attack and murder, and if this is your purpose, then you must be one with them. Only a purpose unifies, and those who share a purpose have a mind as one. The body has no purpose of itself, and must be solitary. From below, it cannot be surmounted. From above, the limits it exerts on those in battle still are gone, and not perceived. The body stands between the Father and the Heaven He created for His Son because it has no purpose.
Think what is given those who share their Father’s purpose, and who know that it is theirs. They want for nothing. Sorrow of any kind is inconceivable. Only the light they love is in awareness, and only love shines upon them forever. It is their past, their present and their future; always the same, eternally complete and wholly shared. They know it is impossible their happiness could ever suffer change of any kind. Perhaps you think the battleground can offer something you can win. Can it be anything that offers you a perfect calmness, and a sense of love so deep and quiet that no touch of doubt can ever mar your certainty? And that will last forever?”
Thank you, so that’s it. We have this moment in which to share an idea of perfection and supreme joy. Anything other than that is something you made up and is some form of death, isn’t it? This is an uncompromising testament to how you came here, you were here for a moment and then you left. The single most difficult lesson is also the most simple, isn’t it? It’s the most obscure: “Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists, and herein lies the peace of God.” And every time you regard your brother you are learning or failing to learn this lesson. But the purpose of your brother, certainly now, is the enjoyment of an idea that you are as God created you, otherwise there’s going to be a lot of long faces and you’re going to get sick and die.
We have this moment to enjoy that, and to depart in peace. All problems are resolved already unless you insist on maintaining the problem. All sickness is healed, all wars are over, and there is no death. This made possible in an instant that is given to us, not separately, individually, but is given to us because we want it, finally. You want it! I don’t want this, I want this! Isn’t it as simple as that? It’s more simple than that! There isn’t really a choice at all! There is no choice to be who you are for all eternity – I’m sorry. I’m very happily sorry to be in this moment in which that choice is continually being offered and accepted. Wow! That comes as a great relief to me! So yes, forget all the nonsense. Anything else is just nonsense. You don’t have to get caught up in nonsense. Right? Ok, continuing the lesson. Thank you for your ears, this is continuing into the next chapter, chapter 24, “The Goal of Specialness” section 1 paragraph 3:
“All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief, to be defended though unrecognized, is faith in specialness.” Is it ok if I just read this little bit? “This takes many forms, but always clashes with the reality of God’s creation and with the grandeur that He gave His Son. And what else could justify attack?” and there’s the root of the need to attack, right there. “For who could hate someone whose Self is his, and Whom he knows perfectly? Only the special could have enemies, because they are different and not the same. And difference of any kind imposes orders of reality, and a need to judge that cannot be escaped.
What God created cannot be attacked, for there is nothing in the universe unlike itself. But what is different calls for judgment, and this must come from someone “better,” someone incapable of being like what he condemns, “above” it, sinless by comparison with it. And thus does specialness become a means and end at once. For specialness not only sets apart, but serves as grounds from which attack on those who seem “beneath” the special one is “natural” and “just.” The special ones feel weak and frail because of differences, for what would make them special is their enemy. Yet they protect its enmity and call it “friend.” On its behalf they fight against the universe, for nothing in the world they value more.
Specialness is the great dictator of the wrong decisions. Here is the grand illusion of what you are and what your brother is. And here is what must make the body dear and worth preserving. Specialness must be defended. Illusions can attack it, and they do. For what your brother must become to keep your specialness is an illusion. He who is “worse” than you must be attacked, so that your specialness can live on his defeat. For specialness is triumph, and its victory is his defeat and shame. How can he live, with all your sins upon him? And who must be his conqueror but you?
Would it be possible for you to hate your brother if you were like him? Could you attack him if you realized you journey with him, to a goal that is the same? Would you not help him reach it in every way you could, if his attainment of it were perceived as yours? You are his enemy in specialness; his friend in a shared purpose. Specialness can never share, for it depends on goals that you alone can reach. And he must never reach them, or your goal is jeopardized. Can love have meaning where the goal is triumph? And what decision can be made for this that will not hurt you?
Your brother is your friend because his Father created him like you. There is no difference. You have been given to your brother that love might be extended, not cut off from him. What you keep is lost to you. God gave you and your brother Himself, and to remember this is now the only purpose that you share. And so it is the only one you have. Could you attack your brother if you chose to see no specialness of any kind between you and him? Look fairly at whatever makes you give your brother only partial welcome, or would let you think that you are better off apart. Is it not always your belief your specialness is limited by your relationship? And is not this the “enemy” that makes you and your brother illusions to each other?
The fear of God and of your brother comes from each unrecognized belief in specialness. For you demand your brother bow to it against his will. And God Himself must honor it or suffer vengeance. Every twinge of malice, or stab of hate or wish to separate arises here. For here the purpose that you and your brother share becomes obscured from both of you. You would oppose this course because it teaches you you and your brother are alike. You have no purpose that is not the same, and none your Father does not share with you. For your relationship has been made clean of special goals. And would you now defeat the goal of holiness that Heaven gave it?
You can defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it… Christ’s vision is its “enemy”,” for it sees not what they would look upon, and it would show them that the specialness they think they see is an illusion.
What would they see instead? The shining radiance of the Son of God, so like his Father that the memory of Him springs instantly to mind. And with this memory, the Son remembers his own creations, as like to him as he is to his Father. And all the world he made, and all his specialness, and all the sins he held in its defense against himself, will vanish as his mind accepts the truth about himself, as it returns to take their place. This is the only “cost” of truth: You will no longer see what never was, nor hear what makes no sound. Is it a sacrifice to give up nothing, and to receive the Love of God forever?”
Wow! This is alive in the present. We are alive in the present! In the reality of a perfect idea that we had absolutely nothing to say about, so I’d better shut up. My God, these are the simple lessons from Jesus that is your required course, my required course. The ‘fat lady’ may have sung already, but who cares? This is moment-by-moment, one day at a time, in association with you.
Thank you! That was beautiful- wow! Just one more thing, if you’ll bear with me, chapter 31, “The Final Vision – Walking with Christ.” How about that? That’s a good one – “Walking with Christ.” Okay, I really have nothing to say – that’s why I keep saying I have nothing to say, so I’m just going to read this, then I’m reminded how much I have to say. Yeah, but you know? We’re choosing a Pope right? I can enjoy that for a moment. One thing about being the Pope… you know, who would want to be the Pope anyway? Well at least you get a nice shiny glass sarcophagus in the crypt of Saint Peter’s and come resurrection day you’re going to be looking good right? A dead Pope is very valuable. We stuff them, embalm them and make them look really nice because on resurrection day “when the dead shall rise out of the grave”… is that the Catholic catechism? Apparently. Then at least the Popes will be looking good, they’ll be already dressed for the occasion. But they need to sort out between themselves who’s really going to be the Pope, you know, which is going to be the head Pope. I’ve no idea why I said that, but I enjoyed it. I just love the idea that you would need an intercessor, an intermediary that represents your cult association of whatever you’ve come to accept as your belief, and you would need someone to represent that so you could worship them, adore them, and offer your devotion to them, kiss their ring and accept the infallibility of their decision-making prerogative that you have given them. I don’t know why I said that either. I think that is explained in exactly what I’m going to read next. Are you ready? No, you’ll never be ready!
“Walking with Christ.
The voice you hear in your brother is but your own. What does he ask for? And listen well!” He’s using an exclamation mark – “For he is asking what will come to you, because..” why? “..because you see an image of yourself and hear your voice alone requesting what you want.” And – “Before you answer pause to think on this: The answer that I give my brother is what I am asking for, and what I learn of him is what I learn about myself.
Then let us wait an instant and be still, Let us forget everything we thought we heard.” I mean everything. Let’s forget everything we thought we heard, all the ideas. Let’s just enjoy this moment free of all the bullshit and nonsense and ideas that are circulating and occupying your mind that you’ve been enjoying, and have been entertained with, and the conceptual conclusions that you’re coming to. It’s all meaningless. Let’s just enjoy a moment and go ‘oh heck, shit, yeah – let’s be free!’ Throw out the book, throw out the “Cheese Factory”, throw out the Healing Centre, throw out the Academy, throw out the board, the committee, the chair, anything, everything; all the ideas that you have. They don’t mean a damn thing, they are meaningless in a moment, in an instant that you spend with your brother and resurrect. This instant if you wish. Why not? You’ve been coming into this instant long enough. It must be time. It must be time to be free. And that’s contained in what we’re going to read. Because this is, if you like, it’s just a meditation:
“Then let us wait an instant and be still, forgetting everything we thought we heard; remembering how much we do not know. This brother neither leads nor follows us, but walks beside us on the selfsame road. He is like us, as near or far away from what we want as we will let him be. We make no gains he does not make with us, and we fall back if he does not advance. Take not his hand in anger but in love, for in his progress do you count your own. And we go separately along the way unless you keep him safely by your side.
Because he is your equal in God’s Love, you will be saved from all appearances and answer to the Christ Who calls to you. Be still and listen. Think not ancient thoughts. Forget the dismal lessons that you learned about this Son of God who calls to you. Christ calls to all with equal tenderness, seeing no leaders and no followers, and hearing but one answer to them all. Because He hears one Voice, He cannot hear a different answer from the one He gave when God appointed Him His only Son.
Be very still an instant. Come without all thought of what you ever learned before, and put aside all images you made. The old will fall away before the new without your opposition or intent. There will be no attack upon the things you thought were precious and in need of care. There will be no assault upon your wish to hear a call that never has been made. Nothing will hurt you in this holy place, to which you come to listen silently and learn the truth of what you really want. No more than this will you be asked to learn. But as you hear it, you will understand you need but come away without the thoughts you did not want, and that were never true.
Forgive your brother all appearances, that are but ancient lessons you have taught yourself about the sinfulness in you. Hear but his call for mercy and release from all the fearful images he holds of what he is and of what you must be. He is afraid to walk with you, and thinks perhaps a bit behind, a bit ahead would be a safer place for him to be. Can you make progress if you think the same, advancing only when he would step back, and falling back when he would go ahead? For so do you forget the journey’s goal, which is but to decide to walk with him, so neither leads nor follows. Thus it is a way you go together, not alone. And in this choice is learning’s outcome changed, for Christ has been reborn to both of you.
One instant spent without your old ideas of who your great companion is and what he should be asking for, will be enough to let this happen. And you will perceive his purpose is the same as yours. He asks for what you want, and needs the same as you. It takes, perhaps, a different form in him, but it is not the form you answer to. He asks and you receive, for you have come with but one purpose; that you learn you love your brother with a brother’s love. And as a brother, must his Father be the same as yours, as he is like yourself in truth.
Together is your joint inheritance remembered and accepted by you both. Alone it is denied to both of you. Is it not clear that while you still insist on leading or on following, you think you walk alone, with no one by your side? This is the road to nowhere, for the light cannot be given while you walk alone, and so you cannot see which way you go. And thus there is confusion, and a sense of endless doubting as you stagger back and forward in the darkness and alone. Yet these are but appearances of what the journey is, and how it must be made. For next to you is One Who holds the light before you, so that every step is made in certainty and sureness of the road. A blindfold can indeed obscure your sight, but cannot make the way itself grow dark. And He Who travels with you has the light.”
I just want to share two prayers with you. The video today is lesson 151 – “All things are echoes of the voice for God” – what an extraordinary lesson that is! That is literally the conversion contained in one lesson of the entirety of yourself. I can’t express it. Okay, yes, let’s read the lesson:
Lesson 351
“My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.”
Let us pray:
“Father, who is my brother but your holy son? And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a sinner, not a Son of God, alone and friendless in a fearful world. Yet this perception is a choice I make, and can relinquish. I can also see my brother sinless, as your holy son. And with this choice I see my sinlessness; my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear. Choose, then, for me, my Father, through your Voice. For He alone gives judgement in Your Name.”
Lesson 352
“Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the other comes the peace of God Himself.
Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again. I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way. You have not left me comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to it. Father, I would hear Your Voice and find Your peace today. For I would love my own Identity, and find in It the memory of You.”
Lesson 357
“Forgiveness, truth’s reflection, tells me how to offer miracles, and thus escape the prison house in which I think I live. Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in my brother; then in me. Your Voice instructs me patiently to hear Your Word, and give as I receive. And as I look upon Your Son today, I hear Your Voice instructing me to find the way to You, as You appointed that the way shall be:
“Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed.”
Amen, and thank you. Yes, there is nothing but thanks and gratitude to God for giving you the reflection of you in which you have the continual opportunity to find yourself!
