*Peace*: https://tinyurl.com/buffalo208

Peace is an infinitely enormous place in your mind. Bigger than that buffalo. Bigger than the sky. You think peace comes from the world, but the truth is peace
is in you.

Peace allows love to enter. In the absence of attack - the love of God can enter
naturally.


"Those who remember always that they know nothing, and who have become willing to
learn everything, will learn it. But whenever they trust themselves, they will not learn. They have destroyed their motivation for learning by thinking they already know. Think not you understand anything until you pass the test of perfect peace, for peace and understanding go together and never can be found alone. Each brings the other with it, for it is the law of God they be not separate. They are cause and effect, each to the other, so where one is absent the other cannot be."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 14, Section 11 (12pdf)


Peace leads to understanding, and understanding is meaning, and meaning is love.

Thus it might say:

"Love and understanding go together and never can be found alone. Each brings the
other with it, for it is the law of God they be not separate. They are cause and
effect, each to the other, so where one is absent the other cannot be."

From peace comes love, and from love comes Self-Esteem.

Love also is happiness.

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.


"Miracles are seen in light. The body's eyes do not perceive the light. But I am
not a body. What am I?"
A Course in Miracles- Workbook Lesson 91

In the light of love, all things are comprehensible.


"Only those who recognize they cannot know unless the effects of understanding are
with them, can really learn at all. For this it must be peace they want, and nothing else. Whenever you think you know, peace will depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of peace. Whenever you fully realize that you know
not, peace will return, for you will have invited him to do so by abandoning the
ego on behalf of him. Call not upon the ego for anything; it is only this that you need do. The Holy Spirit will, of himself, fill every mind that so makes room
for him.

If you want peace you must abandon the teacher of attack. The Teacher of Peace will never abandon you. You can desert him but he will never reciprocate, for his
faith in you is his understanding. It is as firm as is his faith in his Creator,
and he knows that faith in his Creator must encompass faith in his creation. In
this consistency lies his holiness which he cannot abandon, for it is not his will
to do so. With your perfection ever in his sight, he gives the gift of peace to
everyone who perceives the need for peace, and who would have it. Make way for peace, and it will come. For understanding is in you, and from it peace must come.

The power of God, from which they both arise, is yours as surely as it is his. You
think you know him not, only because, alone, it is impossible to know him. Yet see
the mighty works that he will do through you, and you must be convinced you did them through him. It is impossible to deny the Source of effects so powerful they
could not be of you. Leave room for him, and you will find yourself so filled with power that nothing will prevail against your peace. And this will be the test by which you recognize that you have understood."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 14, Section 11 (12pdf)


"The voice of the Holy Spirit is weak in you. That is why you must share It. It
must be increased in strength before you can hear It. It is impossible to hear It
in yourself while It is so weak in your mind. It is not weak in Itself, but It is
limited by your unwillingness to hear It. If you make the mistake of looking for
the Holy Spirit in yourself alone your thoughts will frighten you because, by adopting the ego's viewpoint, you are undertaking an ego-alien journey with the ego as guide. This is bound to produce fear."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 5, Section 3 (4pdf)


"A holy relationship is a means of saving time. One instant spent together restores the universe to both of you. You *are* prepared. Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do. When peace comes at last
to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when
the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is
finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; "_I
need do nothing_." Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find
in his own way, at his own time. You do not need this time. Time has been saved
for you because you and your brother are together. This is the special means this
course is using to save you time. You are not making use of the course if you insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what was made for
*you*. Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing
else. "I need do nothing" is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation."

To do anything involves the body. And if you recognize you need do nothing, you
have withdrawn the body's value from your mind. Here is the quick and open door
through which you slip past centuries of effort, and escape from time. This is the way in which sin loses all attraction _right now_. For here is time denied,
and past and future gone. Who needs do nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides. He will remain when you forget, and the body's activities return to occupy your conscious mind.

Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And you will
be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity. This
quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. It is this center, from which the
body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness of it."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 18, Section 7, Scribed May 31, 1967


"Having made [the choice for the atonement] you will understand why you once believed that, when you met someone else, you thought he *was* someone else. And
every holy encounter in which you enter fully will teach you this is not so.

You can encounter only part of yourself because you are part of God"
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 8, Section 3


Seek Peace, and Seek Light. When you find true peace, the love of God will naturally enter. The love of God will naturally enter, because the love of God is
already here. It's just like if you were attacking someone who was trying to give
you, they wouldn't be able to give you, and they would go away. If you finally stopped attacking, they would not be around anymore to give you. If you are not
at peace because of all the responsibilities and interests and worries of this world, then it is as if you are attacking yourself. Unlike another person, God will never go away because God is already here. But as long as you persist in attacking yourself you will not receive God's love. As soon as you return your mind to peace, the love of God will naturally enter because God is here already.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit merely means to give up corruption.
This is why the Course says "I need do nothing."

This world is a dream, and an illusion, and in your mind. And there is another world in your mind, that you can see, and this world is the world of light.


"I can escape from this world by giving up attack thoughts.
Herein lies salvation, and nowhere else. Without attack thoughts I could not see
a world of attack. As forgiveness allows love to return to my awareness, I will
see a world of peace and safety and joy. And it is this I choose to see, in place
of what I look on now."
- A Course in Miracles, Workbook, Lesson 55 review


https://tinyurl.com/A-Course-In-Miracles-pdf
https://www.biblegateway.com/


"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus."
- Paul the Apostle, Philippians 4:7, Holy Bible, New Testament

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A Holy Relationship Is A Means Of Saving Time

"It is impossible to accept the holy instant without reservation unless, just for
an instant, you are willing to see no past or future. You cannot prepare for it
without placing it in the future. Release is given you the instant you desire it.
Many have spent a lifetime in preparation, and have indeed achieved their instants of success. This course does not attempt to teach more than they learned
in time, but it does aim at saving time. You may be attempting to follow a very
long road to the goal you have accepted. It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin. Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body necessary. All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose. Yet the means are tedious and very time consuming, for all of them look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy.
Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means. A holy relationship is a
means of saving time."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 18, Section 7, Scribed May 31, 1967


So it's all about *Self-Esteem*, isn't it?

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For God Is Not The Author Of Confusion But Of Peace

"For God is not the author of confusion but of peace"
- Paul the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 14:33, Holy Bible, New Testament, NKJV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+14%3A33&version=NKJV


"God is not the author of fear. You are. You have chosen to create unlike him,
and have therefore made fear for yourself. You are not at peace because you are
not fulfilling your function. God gave you a very lofty function that you are not
meeting. Your ego has chosen to be afraid instead of meeting it. When you awaken
you will not be able to understand this, because it is literally incredible. *Do
not believe the incredible now*. Any attempt to increase its believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable. The word "inevitable" is fearful to the ego,
but joyous to the spirit. God is inevitable, and you cannot avoid him any more than he can avoid you."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 4, Section 1 (2pdf)


"God's answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with
joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake.

Father, today we will forgive Your world, and let creation be Your Own. We have
misunderstood all things. But we have not made sinners of the holy Sons of God.
What You created sinless so abides forever and forever. Such are we. And we rejoice to learn that we have made mistakes which have no real effects on us. Sin
is impossible, and on this fact forgiveness rests upon a certain base more solid
than the shadow world we see. Help us forgive, for we would be redeemed. Help us
forgive, for we would be at peace."
- A Course in Miracles, Workbook, Lesson 359

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Jesus Teaches To Forgive The Repentant

"If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And
if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to
you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
- Jesus Christ, Luke 17:3-4, Holy Bible, New Testament, NKJV


https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+17%3A3-4&version=NKJV

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The Great Rays Are Mentioned In Five Passages Of A Course In Miracles

1.
"The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition that his brother can do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call that is strengthened by joining. Because the miracle worker has heard God's voice, he strengthens It in a sick brother by weakening his belief in
sickness, which he does not share. The power of one mind can shine into another,
because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere and it
is eternal.

In many only the spark remains, for the Great Rays are obscured. Yet God has kept
the spark alive so that the Rays can never be completely forgotten. If you but see the little spark you will learn of the greater light, for the Rays are there
unseen. Perceiving the spark will heal, but knowing the light will create. Yet in
the returning the little light must be acknowledged first, for the separation was
a descent from magnitude to littleness. But the spark is still as pure as the Great Light, because it is the remaining call of creation. Put all your faith in
it, and God himself will answer you."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 10, Section 4 (5pdf)



2.
"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 to vision that 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. Once you have accepted it
as the only perception you want, it is translated into knowledge by the part that
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, which 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 in order 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 own 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 that you have
given it.

It is impossible to divide your strength between Heaven and hell, God and the ego,
and release your power to creation, which is the only purpose for which it was given you. Love would *always* give increase. Limits are demanded by the ego, and represent its demands to make little and ineffectual. Limit your sight 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
of 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. The reality of this relationship becomes the only truth that you could
ever want. All truth is here."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 15, Section 9



3.
"The special relationship is totally meaningless without a body. If you value it,
you must also value the body. And what you value you will keep. The special relationship is a device for limiting your self to a body, and for limiting your
perception of others to theirs. The Great Rays would establish the total lack of
value of the special relationship, if they were seen. For in seeing them the body
would disappear, because its value would be lost. And so your whole investment in
seeing it would be withdrawn from it.

You see the world you value. On this side of the bridge you see the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in separate unions and to become one
by losing. When two individuals seek to become one, they are trying to decrease
their magnitude. Each would deny his power, for the separate union excludes the
universe. Far more is left outside than would be taken in, for God is left without and nothing taken in. If one such union were made in perfect faith, the
universe would enter into it. Yet the special relationship the ego seeks does not
include even one whole individual. The ego wants but part of him, and sees only
this part and nothing else.

Across the bridge it is so different! For a time the body is still seen, but not
exclusively, as it is seen here. The little spark that holds the Great Rays within it is also visible, and this spark cannot be limited long to littleness. Once you have crossed the bridge, the value of the body is so diminished in your
sight that you will see no need at all to magnify it. For you will realize that
the only value the body has is to enable you to bring your brothers to the bridge
with you, and to be released together there."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 16, Section 6



4.
"You who are now the bringer of salvation have the function of bringing light to
darkness. The darkness in you has been brought to light. Carry it back to darkness, from the holy instant to which you brought it. We are made whole in our
desire to make whole. Let not time worry you, for all the fear that you and your
brother experience is really past. Time has been readjusted to help us do, together, what your separate pasts would hinder. You have gone past fear, for no
two minds can join in the desire for love without love's joining them.

Not one light in Heaven but goes with you. Not one Ray that shines forever in the
Mind of God but shines on you. Heaven is joined with you in your advance to Heaven. When such great lights have joined with you to give the little spark of
your desire the power of God himself, can you remain in darkness? You are coming
home together, after a long and meaningless journey that you undertook apart, and
that led nowhere. You have found your brother, and you will light each other's way. And from this light will the Great Rays extend back into darkness and forward unto God, to shine away the past and so make room for his eternal presence, in which everything is radiant in the light."
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 18, Section 3



5.
"Peace be to me, the holy Son of God.
Peace to my brother, who is one with me.
Let all the world be blessed with peace through us.

Father, it is Your peace that I would give, receiving it of You. I am Your Son,
forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain forever still and undisturbed within me. I would reach to them in silence and in certainty, for nowhere else can certainty be found. Peace be to me, and peace to all the world.
In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to You in perfect sinlessness. And with this thought we gladly say "Amen."
- A Course in Miracles, Workbook, Lesson 360

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Would You Know Of One Who Gives Forever, And Who Knows Of Nothing Except Giving?

"Hear me speak for God and for yourself. You cannot understand how much your Father loves you, for there is no parallel in your experience of the world to help
you understand it. There is nothing on earth with which it can compare, and nothing you have ever felt apart from Him resembles it ever so faintly.

Would you know of One Who gives forever, and Who knows of nothing except giving?

You who belong to the First Cause, created by him like unto himself and part of him, are more than merely guiltless. The state of guiltlessness is only the condition in which what is not there has been removed from the disordered mind that thought it was. This state, and only this, must you attain... for until you
do, you will still think that you are separate from God.

When you have let all that obscured the truth in your most holy mind be undone for
you, and therefore stand in grace before your Father, he will give himself to you
as he has always done. Giving himself is all he knows, and so it is all knowledge. For what he knows not, cannot be, and therefore cannot be given."

Would you know of One Who gives forever, and Who knows of nothing except giving?

God created you out of himself, but still within him. He knows what you are. Remember that there is no second to him. There cannot, therefore, be anyone without his holiness, nor anyone unworthy of his perfect love."

Atonement does not teach you what you are, or what your Father is. The Holy Spirit, Who remembers this for you, merely teaches you how to remove the blocks that stand between you and what you know. So will he teach you to remove the awful burden you have laid upon yourself by loving not the Son of God, and trying
to teach him guilt instead of love. Give up this frantic and insane attempt that
cheats you of the joy of living with your God and Father, and of waking gladly to
his love and holiness that join together as the truth in you, making you one with him.

The Holy Spirit's memory is yours. Remembrance of reality is in him, and therefore in you.

Communication with God is life."

- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 14, Section 4 (5pdf)

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