 We continue on today with Chapter 8, The Holy Encounter. Glory to God in the highest, and to you because He has so willed it. Ask, and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. Ask for light, and learn that you are light. If you want understanding and enlightenment, you will learn it, because your decision to learn it is the decision to listen to the teacher who knows of light, and can therefore teach it to you. There is no limit on your learning, because there is no limit on your mind. There is no limit on his teaching, because he was created to teach. Understanding his function perfectly, he fulfills it perfectly, because that is his joy, and yours. To fulfill the will of God perfectly is the only joy and peace that can be fully known, because it is the only function that can be fully experienced. When this is accomplished, then, there is no other experience. Yet the wish for other experience will block its accomplishment, because God's will cannot be forced upon you. Being an experience of total joy and willingness. The Holy Spirit understands how to teach this, but you do not. That is why you need Him, and why God gave Him to you. Only His understanding will release your will to God's, uniting it with His power and glory, and establishing them as yours. You share them as God shares them, because this is the natural outcome of their being. The will of the Father and of the Son are one by their extension. Their extension is the result of their oneness, holding their unity together by extending their joint will. This is perfect creation by the perfectly created, in union with the perfect Creator. The Father must give fatherhood to His Son, because His own fatherhood must be extended outward. You who belong in God have the holy function of extending His fatherhood by placing no limits upon it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you how to do this, for you can know what it means only of God Himself. When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see Him, you will see yourself. As you treat Him, you will treat yourself. As you think of Him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in Him you will find yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to Him and receiving it yourself. For I am always there with you in remembrance of you. The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is know thyself. There is nothing else to seek. Everyone is looking for himself and for the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Whenever you are with anyone, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in him because they are yours. The ego tries to find them in yourself alone because it does not know where to look. The Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look only at yourself, you cannot find yourself because that is not what you are. Whenever you are with the brother, you are learning what you are because you are teaching what you are. He will respond either with pain or with joy depending on which teacher you are following. He will be imprisoned or released according to your decision and so will you. Never forget your responsibility to him because it is your responsibility to yourself. Give him his place in the kingdom and you will have yours. The kingdom cannot be found alone and you who are the kingdom cannot find yourself alone. To achieve the goal of the curriculum then you cannot listen to the ego whose purpose is to defeat its own goal. The ego does not know this because it does not know anything. But you can know it and you will know it if you are willing to look at what the ego would make of you. This is your responsibility because once you have really looked at it, you will accept the Atonement for yourself. What other choice could you make? Having made this choice, 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 who is everything. His power and glory are everywhere and you cannot be excluded from them. The ego teaches that your strength is in you alone. The Holy Spirit teaches that all strength is in God and therefore in you. God wills no one suffer. He does not will anyone to suffer for a wrong decision including you. That is why he has given you the means for undoing it. Through his power and glory, all your wrong decisions are undone completely, releasing you and your brother from every imprisoning thought that any part of the sonship holds. Wrong decisions have no power because they are not true. The imprisonment they seem to produce is no more true than they are. Power and glory belong to God alone. So do you. God gives whatever belongs to him because he gives of himself and everything belongs to him. Giving of yourself is the function he gave you. Fulfilling it perfectly will let you remember what you have of him and by this you will remember also what you are in him. You cannot be powerless to do this because this is your power. Glory is God's gift to you because that is what he is. See this glory everywhere to remember what you are. And from the workbook, lesson 58, these ideas are for review today. My holiness envelops everything I see. From my holiness does the perception of the real world come. Having forgiven, I can no longer see myself as guilty. I can't accept the innocence that is the truth about me. Seen through understanding eyes, the holiness of the world is all I see. For I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself. My holiness blesses the world. The perception of my holiness does not bless me alone. Everyone and everything I see in its light shares in the joy it brings to me. There is nothing that is apart from this joy because there is nothing that does not share my holiness. As I recognize my holiness, so does the holiness of the world shine forth for everyone to see. There is nothing my holiness cannot do. My holiness is unlimited in its power to heal because it is unlimited in its power to save. What is there to be saved from except illusions? And what are all illusions except false ideas about myself? My holiness as none does them all by asserting the truth about me. In the presence of my holiness, which I share with God Himself, all idols vanish. My holiness is my salvation. Since my holiness saves me from all guilt, recognizing my holiness is recognizing my salvation. It is also recognizing the salvation of the world. Once I have accepted my holiness, nothing can make me afraid. And because I am unafraid, everyone must share in my understanding, which is the gift of God to me and to the world. I am blessed as a Son of God. Herein lies my claim to all good and only good. I am blessed as a Son of God. All good things are mine because God intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son. Today we call upon you, God, to guide us in the holy encounter. We have asked for the means to awaken to heaven. You have given us an opportunity to a new perception of everyone and everything. Today we open to receive the experience of the holy encounter. As we teach it, today we listen to the Holy Spirit in Jesus. The teacher who knows of light, who is teaching us of light, of no limit on learning, of no limit on mind, we have believed that our brothers and sisters are different from ourself, that all of us could have separate personality selves. This cannot be the truth whom you created, you created one perfectly unified, perfect love and joy and innocence, perfect peace. Today we open to know the will of God perfectly to experience joy and peace with everyone that we encounter. We seem to encounter physically or mentally. If we think of someone, this is the holy encounter. If we meet someone, seemingly person to person, we open to your new perception. We open to love thy neighbor as thy self. We open to the experience that my brother is myself, my sister is myself. I am teaching myself what I am as I react, as I think, as I treat, so I react and think and treat about myself. Let me remember as I review these beautiful ideas of the day, let me see the holy encounter as you see it. Remind me of the beautiful words from the text that you have offered for me today. When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. We realize that this is the goal of the curriculum, know thy self. There is nothing else to seek. Everyone is looking for himself and for the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Let me remember that whenever I am with anyone, I have another opportunity to find the power and the glory. I think I have lost. The workbook review ideas and lessons help me. They help me to see my brother as myself, my sister as myself, by recognizing my holiness, the holiness within, the holiness that is in God, the holiness that extends to everyone and everything. Today we practice, my holiness envelops everything I see. My holiness blesses the world. There is nothing my holiness cannot do. My holiness is my salvation. I am blessed as a son of God. Amen.