 Of course, in Miracles Live, today we are continuing on with our workbook lessons, Jesus is showing us the way day by day in mind training, calling us to remember the truth, calling us to remember our natural state of being as the Christ, the perfect creation of a perfect loving God. And to do that, we go through undoing the ego, loosening our mind from the belief in the ego, from the belief in separation from God, and opening to begin to see that everything that we perceive through the five senses, through the ego's fragmented lens of separation, everything that is perceived in linear time in what we call the cosmos, the world, is a projection of the belief in separation from our Creator. So we've just gone through the first 50 lessons of A Course in Miracles, and I really think that's mostly it's undoing. If you look at the very first lesson we did, Nothing I See Means Anything, that's a major undoing lesson, that kicks it off. And then the second lesson I've given everything I see, all the meaning it has for me, is really starting to realize that what we have called reality, the perceptual world, is not reality at all. It's a dream. It's fiction. It's fantasy. And even if we open to the idea that it's a dream or fiction and fantasy, we start to realize that whatever is being perceived has to be believed first. You have to believe in separation and fragmentation before you perceive it. You have to believe in war before you perceive war. You have to believe in sickness before you perceive sickness. You have to believe in competition before you perceive competition. And that's what Jesus has been establishing at the beginning part of our year of mind training, dedicated year of mind training, 365 lessons for 365 days in the year. Very practical, structured, systematic undoing of everything we think we think and think we know and everything that we have believed about the world, coming with empty arms to God and saying, light of God, love of God, love of truth, please illuminate my mind. Please help wake me up from this dream of separation and into the reality of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God within, the kingdom of heaven within. So we've just come through 50 lessons of undoing and being introduced to the idea of true seeing, which is vision, the vision of Christ, and coming toward that goal of truly seeing, not trying to pretend that our five senses are showing us anything real or that our daily thoughts and consciousness are real in any way. We have real thoughts, thoughts that we think with our Creator, and those are purely loving, and we're just emptying out our mind of everything else. We've also been opened up to the idea of divine providence. The last lesson that we had, lesson 50, I am sustained by the love of God, and of course the last lesson in our review, the first 50 lessons is I am sustained by the love of God, and basically Jesus is saying, yeah, you have to realize that it's God's love and light that sustains your being, and even when you perceive yourself as in a far country of time and space, we'll say you still are being sustained by the love of God. Whether you believe it or not, whether you've interposed ideas of jobs and careers and different types of working and believe that you're sustaining yourself, really you're sustained by the Creator, and that's the truth underneath all the lies, all the false beliefs, all the false concepts. So here we go, now we're starting on lesson 61 today, and we're kicking in with the lessons of truth, of certainty, of identity. It's really, it's our identity that is the lesson. Okay, lesson 61, I am the light of the world. Who is the light of the world except God's Son? This, then, is merely a statement of the truth about yourself. It is the opposite of the statement of pride, of arrogance, or of self-deception. It does not describe the self-concept you have made. It does not refer to any of the characteristics with which you have endowed your idols. It refers to you as you were created by God. It simply states the truth. To the ego today's idea is the epitome of self-glorification, but the ego does not understand humility, mistaking it for self-debasement. Humility consists of accepting your role in salvation and in taking no other. It is not humility to insist you cannot be the light of the world if that is the function God assigned to you. It is only arrogance that would assert this function cannot be for you, and arrogance is always of the ego. True humility requires that you accept today's idea because it is God's voice which tells you it is true. This is a beginning step in accepting your real function on earth. It is a giant stride toward taking your rightful place in salvation. It is a positive assertion of your right to be saved and an acknowledgement of the power that has given you to save others. You will want to think about this idea as often as possible today. It is the perfect answer to all illusions and therefore to all temptation. It brings all the images you have made about yourself to the truth and helps you depart in peace, unburdened and certain of your purpose. As many practice periods as possible should be undertaken today, although each one need not exceed a minute or two, they should begin with telling yourself, I am the light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am here. Then think about these statements for a short while, preferably with your eyes closed if the situation permits. Let a few related thoughts come to you and repeat the idea to yourself if your mind wanders away from the central thought. Be sure both to begin and end the day with a practice period. Thus you will awaken with an acknowledgement of the truth about yourself. Reinforce it throughout the day and turn to sleep as you reaffirm your function and your only purpose here. These two practice periods may be longer than the rest if you find them helpful and want to extend them. Today's idea goes far beyond the ego's petty views of what you are and what your purpose is. As a bringer of salvation, this is obviously necessary. This is the first of a number of giant steps we will take in the next few weeks. Try today to begin a firm, to build a firm foundation for these advances. You are the light of the world. God has built his plan for the salvation of his Son on you. We begin these advances, these weeks of opening to the truth, with certainty, with clarity, with determination, with unwavering and uncompromising devotion and commitment. I am the light of the world. Yesterday I closed the broadcast, the live broadcast, with some beautiful music meditations. The last song that I played was from Oman and Shanti, and they inspired me so much. Their music has inspired me and carried me so much, but when I was reading today's lesson, I could hear their voices in my mind because they actually have a song. I am the light of the world, that is my only function, that is why I am here. And that's that part in the lesson we just read, where Jesus says that as many practice periods as possible should be undertaken today, although each one need not exceed a minute or two, they should begin with telling yourself, I am the light of the world, that is my only function, that is why I am here. Ah, that song. Thank you, Oman and Shanti. That's my practice periods. I'm going to have an inner song reminder today, that's how I begin. And then he says, then think about these statements for a short while, preferably with your eyes closed, if the situation permits, and then let a few related thoughts come to you, and repeat the idea to yourself if your mind wanders away from the central thought. It could be, I am love, or I am spirit, or I am joy. I am perfect innocence, just let whatever related thoughts come float through your mind, float as you remind yourself, I am the light of the world. For supporting ideas for today's practice periods, and for today's lesson, let's move back into the text to chapter 21, reason and perception, and let's go to section two, the responsibility for sight. Oh yes, this will support our lesson of the day. Admittedly it is a vast lesson, I am the light of the world. And yet we need support for accepting this simple truth, this powerful simple truth, I am the light of the world. So chapter 21, reason and perception, section two, the responsibility for sight. We have repeatedly, we have repeated how little is asked of you to learn this course. It is the same small willingness you need to have your whole relationship transformed to joy, the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit for which He gives you everything, the very little on which salvation rests, the tiny change of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to resurrection, and being true it is so simple that it cannot fail to be completely understood. Rejected, yes, but not ambiguous, and if you choose against it now it will not be because it is obscure, but rather that this little cost seemed in your judgment to be too much to pay for peace. This is the only thing that you need due for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations for here the power of salvation lies. I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience and I decide upon the goal I would achieve and everything that seems to happen to me I ask for and receive as I have asked. Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken and all effects of your mistakes will disappear. It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside of Him. It is impossible that happenings that come to Him were not His choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. No accident nor chance is possible within the universe as God created it outside of which is nothing. Suffer and you decided sin was your goal. Be happy and you gave the power of decision to Him who must decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit and even this He gives to you to give yourself. For by this gift is given you the power to release your Savior that He may give salvation unto you. Be grudge not then this little offering withhold it and you keep the world as you see it now. Give it away and everything you see goes with it. Never was so much given for so little. In the Holy Incident is this exchange affected and maintained. Here is the world you do not want brought to the one you do and here the one you do is given you because you want it. Yet for this the power of your wanting must first be recognized. You must accept its strength and not its weakness. You must perceive that what is strong enough to make a world can let it go and can accept correction if it is willing to see that it was wrong. The world you see is but the idol witness that you were right. This witness is insane. You trained it in its testimony and as it gave it back to you you listened and convinced yourself that what it saw was true. You did this to yourself. See only this and you will also see how circular the reasoning on which you are seeing rest. This was not given you. This was your gift to you and to your brother. Be willing then to have it taken from him and be replaced with truth and as you look upon the change in him it will be given you to see it in yourself. Perhaps you do not see the need for you to give this little offering. Look closer then at what it is and very simply see in it the whole exchange of separation for salvation. All that the ego is is an idea that it is possible that things could happen to the son of god without his will and thus without the will of his creator whose will cannot be separate from his own. This is the son of god's replacement for his will a mad revolt against what must be must forever be. This is the statement that he has the power to make god powerless and so to take it for himself and leave himself without what god has will for him. This is the mad idea you have enshrined upon your alters in which you worship and anything that threatens this seems to attack your faith for here is it invested. Think not that you are faithless for your belief and trust and this is strong indeed. The holy spirit can give you faith in holiness and vision to see it easily enough but you have not left open and unoccupied the altar where the gift belongs. Where they should be you have set up your idols to something else. This other will which seems to tell you what must happen you give reality and what would show you otherwise must therefore seem unreal. All that is asked of you is to make room for truth. You are not asked to make or do what lies beyond your understanding. All you are asked to do is let it in only to stop your interference with what will happen of itself simply to recognize again the presence of what you thought you gave away. Be willing for an instant to leave your alters free of what you placed upon them and what is really there you cannot fail to see. The holy instant is not an instant of creation but of recognition. For recognition comes a vision and suspended judgment. Then it is only possible and only is it possible to look within and see what must be there plainly in sight and wholly independent of interference and judgment. Undoing is not your task but it is up to you to welcome it or not. Faith and desire go hand in hand for everyone believes in what he wants. We have already said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants to make itself. There is no better demonstration of the power of wanting and therefore of faith to make its goals seem real and possible. Faith in the unreal leaves two adjustments of reality to make it fit the goal of madness. The goal of sin induces the perception of a fearful world to justify its purpose. What you desire you will see and if its reality is false you will uphold it by not realizing all the adjustments you have introduced to make it so. So it's very clear Jesus has just told us we have already seen that wishful said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants to make it so. Freud said that dreams were wished for foment and Jesus is teaching us that what we perceive through the five senses is coming from the wish to be separate from God. God is pure love God is pure light God creates in love and light and spirit Christ is pure love light and spirit and even the the symbol of the body of Jesus was just a something that the ego made the ego made time and space and bodies and the Holy Spirit used the body the puppet of Jesus to speak the truth I and the Father are one before Abraham was I am this is this is the Holy Spirit the universal spirit speaking you know love the Lord thy God with all the heart soul and might it's the Holy Spirit the first commandment love your neighbor as yourself that's the Holy Spirit that's the universal spirit calling us back to wake up to the oneness to the truth to the eternal life and eternal love that is God to accept ourselves as a perfect creation of a perfect God that's what Jesus showed us I and the Father are one is saying you know God is the cause God is the creator of reality and I am in effect of that creation is a perfect spirit a perfect Christ light so let's jump now since our lesson is I am the light of the world I know that the ego will throw up a lot of resistance to the lesson today because it doesn't it doesn't believe that there is a possibility that this lesson I am the light of the world it doesn't believe that that's true but when I prayed also this morning Jesus was saying well you just follow the steps of the course and if this world is a dream you have to release your attachment to being a dream figure and release all your attachments to all dream figures and all objects and all things of time and space and come within to the kingdom of God within the step in Jesus's terms is come to forgiveness and what does forgiveness mean but come to see that I am the dreamer of the dream right before I accept fully I am the light of the world I just have to realize that I dream this world and and I don't want to put the cause for any suffering outside myself onto the dream figures or anything of time and space I would I would accept this is my dream so I can accept a different purpose for the dream and a different choice so let's jump to chapter 27 and down to section seven the dreamer of the dream let's just go down to paragraph 13 you are the dreamer of the world of dreams no other cause it has nor ever will nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's son and made him think that he has lost his innocence denied his father and made war upon himself so fearful is the dream so seeming real he could not awaken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear unless a gentler dream preceded his awakening and allowed his calmer mind to welcome not to fear the voice that calls with love to awaken him a gentler dream in which his suffering was healed and where his brother was his friend God willed he awakened gently and with joy and gave him means to awaken without fear except the dream he gave instead of yours it is not difficult to change a dream when once the dreamer has been recognized rest in the Holy Spirit and allow his gentle dreams to take the place of those who dreamed in terror and in fear of death he brings forgiving dreams in which the choice is not who is the murderer and who shall be the victim in the dreams he brings there is no murder and there is no death the dream of guilt is fading from your sight and although your eyes are closed a smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face the sleep is peaceful now for these are happy dreams dream softly of your sinless brother who unites with you in holy innocence and from this dream the Lord of heaven will himself awaken his beloved son dream of your brother's kindnesses instead of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes select his thoughtfulness to dream about instead of counting up the hurts he gave forgive him his illusions and give thanks to him for all the helpfulness he gave and do not brush aside his many gifts because he is not perfect in your dreams he represents his father whom you see as offering both life and death to you brother he gives but life yet what you see as gifts your brother offers represents the gifts you dream your father gives to you let all your brother's gifts be seen in light of charity and kindness offered you and let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for his gifts to you the light has come dream softly of your sinless brother let these beautiful related ideas come today when you close your eyes if possible and just remember I am the light of the world just remember to dream softly of your sinless brother dream a happy dream today in which there is no error there is no condemnation there is no hurt select the happy dream to dream about and then it doesn't seem so far to the idea of the day I am the light of the world amen God bless you remember I am the light of the world that is my only function that is why I'm here