View source for 19.7 The Second Obstacle: The Belief the Body is Valuable for What It Offers

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We said that [[peace]] must first surmount the [[obstacle]] of your [[desire]] to get rid of it. Where the [[attraction]] of [[guilt]] holds sway, peace is not wanted. The second obstacle that peace must [[flow]] across, and closely related to the first, is the [[belief]] that the [[body]] is valuable for what it offers. For here is the attraction of guilt made [[manifest]] in the body, and seen in it.

This is the [[value]] that you think peace would rob you of. This is what you believe that it would dispossess, and leave you [[homeless]]. And it is this for which you would deny a [[home]] to peace. This "[[sacrifice]]" you feel to be too great to make, too much to ask of you. Is it a sacrifice, or a release? What has the body really given you that justifies your [[strange]] belief that in it lies [[salvation]]? Do you not see that this is the belief in [[death]]? Here is the [[focus]] of the [[perception]] of [[Atonement]] as [[murder]]. Here is the source of the [[idea]] that love is fear.

The [[Holy Spirit]]'s messengers are sent far beyond the body, calling [[the mind]] to join in holy [[communion]] and be at [[peace]]. Such is the message that I gave them for you. It is only the messengers of [[fear]] that see the body, for they look for what can [[suffer]]. Is it a sacrifice to be removed from what can suffer? The Holy Spirit does not demand you sacrifice the [[hope]] of the body's [[pleasure]]; it has no hope of pleasure. But neither can it bring you fear of [[pain]]. Pain is the only "sacrifice" the Holy Spirit asks, and this he would remove.

[[Peace]] is extended from you only to the [[eternal]], and it reaches out from the eternal in you. It flows across all else. The second obstacle is no more [[solid]] than the first. For you want neither to get rid of peace nor [[limit]] it. What are these obstacles that you would [[interpose]] between peace and its going forth but [[barriers]] you place between your will and its accomplishment? You want [[communion]], not the feast of [[fear]]. You want salvation, not the pain of [[guilt]]. And you want [[your Father]], not a little mound of clay, to be your [[home]]. In your [[holy relationship]] is your Father's Son. He has not lost communion with him, nor with himself. When you [[agreed]] to join one another, you acknowledged this is so. This has no cost, but it has release from cost.

You have paid very dearly for your [[illusions]], and nothing you have paid for brought you [[peace]]. Are you not glad that [[Heaven]] cannot be [[sacrificed]], and sacrifice cannot be asked of you? There is no [[obstacle]] that you can place before our [[union]], for in your [[holy relationship]] I am there already. We will surmount all obstacles together, for we stand within the gates and not outside. How easily the gates are opened from within, to let peace through to [[bless]] the tired world! Can it be [[difficult]] for us to walk past barriers [[together]], when you have joined the limitless? The end of guilt is in your hands to give. Would you stop now to look for guilt in your brother?

Let me be to you the [[symbol]] of the end of [[guilt]], and look upon your brother as you would look upon me. [[Forgive]] me all the [[sins]] you think the Son of God committed. And in the [[light]] of your forgiveness he will remember who he is, and forget what never was. I ask for your forgiveness, for if you are guilty, so must I be. But if I surmounted guilt and overcame the world, you were with me. Would you see in me the symbol of guilt or the end of guilt, [[remembering]] that what I [[signify]] to you you see within yourself?

From your [[holy relationship]] truth proclaims the [[truth]], and [[love]] looks on itself. [[Salvation]] [[flows]] from deep within the [[home]] you offered to my Father and to me. And we are there together, in the quiet [[communion]] in which [[the Father]] and [[the Son]] are joined. O come ye faithful to the holy [[union]] of the Father and the Son in you! And keep you not apart from what is offered you in [[gratitude]] for giving peace its [[home]] in Heaven. Send forth to all the world the joyous message of the end of guilt, and all the world will answer. Think of your [[happiness]] as everyone offers you witness of the end of [[sin]], and shows you that its [[power]] is gone forever. Where can guilt be, when the belief in sin is gone? And where is [[death]], when its great [[advocate]] is heard no more?

[[Forgive]] me your [[illusions]], and release me from [[punishment]] for what I have not done. So will you learn the [[freedom]] that I taught by teaching freedom to your brother, and so releasing me. I am within your [[holy relationship]], yet you would imprison me behind the obstacles you raise to freedom, and bar my way to you. Yet it is not possible to keep away One Who is there already. And in him it is possible that our [[communion]], where we are joined already, will be the [[focus]] of the new [[perception]] that will bring light to all the world, contained in you. 




[[Category: Chapter 19 - The Attainment of Peace]]
[[Category: Body]]
[[Category: Barriers]]
[[Category: Guilt]]