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Lesson 96

Salvation comes from my One Self

Although you are one Self, you experience yourself as two: as both good and bad, loving and hating, mind and body.  This sense of being split into opposites induces feelings of acute and constant conflict, and leads to frantic attempts to reconcile the conflicting aspects of this self-perception.  You have sought many such solutions, and none of them has worked.  The opposites you see in yourself will never be compatible.  But one exists.

The fact that truth and illusion cannot be reconciled, no matter how you try, what means you use and where you see the problem, must be accepted if you are to be saved.  Until you have accepted this, you will attempt an endless list of goals you cannot achieve; a senseless series of expenditures of time and effort, hopefulness and doubt, each one as futile as the one before, and failing as the next one surely will.

Problems that have no meaning cannot be solved within the framework in which they are posed.  Two selves in conflict could not be resolved, and good and evil have no meeting place.  The self you have made can never be your Self, nor can your Self be split in two and still be what it is and must  forever be.  A mind and a body cannot both exist.  Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies that the other can be real.  If you are physical, your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really be part of you.  If you are spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality.

Spirit makes use of mind as a means to find Self expression.  And the mind that serves the spirit is at peace and filled with joy.  Its power comes from spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here.  Yet mind can also see itself divorced from spirit, and perceive itself within a body which it confuses with itself.  Without its function, then, it has no peace, and happiness is alien to its thoughts.

Yet mind apart from spirit cannot think.  It has denied its Source of strength and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak.  Dissociated from his function now, it thinks it is alone and separate, attacked by armies massed against itself and hiding in the frail support of the body.  Now he must reconcile unlike with like, for this is what it  thinks that it is for.

Waste no more time on this.  Who can solve the senseless conflicts that a dream presents?  What could the resolution  mean in truth?  What purpose could it serve?  What is it for?  Salvation cannot make illusions real or solve a problem that does not exist.  Perhaps you hope it can.  Yet would you want God’s plan for the release of His dear Son to bring paint him and fail to set him free?

Your Self retains Its Thoughts, and they remain within your mind and in the Mind of God.  The Holy Spirit holds salvation in your mind, and offers it the way to peace.  Salvation is a thought you share with God, because His Voice accepted it for you and answered in your name that it was done.  This is salvation kept among the Thoughts your Self holds dear and cherishes for you.

We will attempt today to find this thought, whose presence in your mind is guaranteed by Him Who speaks to you from your only Self.  Our hourly five-minute practicing will be a search for Him within your mind.  Salvation comes from this one Self through Him Who is the Bridge between your mind and It.  Wait patiently, and let Him speak to you about your Self, and what your mind can do, restored to  It and free to serve Its Will.  Begin with saying this:

Salvation comes from my Self alone.  Its thoughts are mine to use.

Then seek its thoughts and claim them for your own.  These are your own real thoughts you have denied, and let your mind go wandering in a world of dreams, to find illusions in their place.  Here are your thoughts, the only ones you have.  Salvation is among them; find it there.

If you succeed, the thoughts that come to you will tell you that you are saved, and that your mind has found the function it sought to lose.  Your Self will welcome it and give it peace. Restored in strength, it will again flow out from spirit to the spirit into all things created by the Spirit as Itself.  Your mind will bless all things.  Confusion done, you are restored, for you have found your Self.

Your Self knows that you cannot fail today.  Perhaps your mind remains uncertain yet a little while.  Be not dismayed by this.  The joy your Self experiences It will save for you, and it will yet be yours in full awareness.  Every time you spend five minutes of the hour seeking Him Who joins your mind and Self, you offer Him another treasure to be kept for you.

Each time today you tell your frantic mind  salvation comes from your Self, you lay up another treasure in your growing store.  And all of it is given everyone who asks for it, and will accept the gift.  Think, then, how much is given to you to give this day, that it be given you!