 We continue today with Chapter 13, The Cloud of Guilt. Guilt remains the only thing that hides the Father, for guilt is the attack upon his son. The guilty always condemn, and having done so they will still condemn, linking the future to the past, as is the ego's law. Fidelity to this law lets no light in, for it demands fidelity to darkness and forbids awakening. Bego's laws are strict, and breaches are severely punished, therefore give no obedience to his laws, for they are laws of punishment. And those who follow them believe they are guilty, and so they must condemn. Between the future and the past, the laws of God must intervene, if you would free yourself. Atonement stands between them, like a lamp shining so brightly that the chain of darkness in which you bound yourself will disappear. Release from guilt is the ego's whole undoing. Make no one fearful, for his guilt is yours, and by obeying the ego's harsh commandments you bring its condemnation on yourself, and you will not escape the punishment it offers those who obey it. The ego rewards fidelity to it with pain, for faith in it is pain, and faith can be rewarded only in terms of the belief in which the faith was placed. Faith makes the power of belief, and where it is invested determines its reward, for faith is always given what is treasured, and what is treasured is returned to you. The world can give you only what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection it has no meaning apart from what you found in it and placed your faith in. Be faithful unto darkness, and you will not see, because your faith will be rewarded as you gave it. You will accept your treasure, and if you place your faith in the past, the future will be like it. Whatever you hold dear, you think is yours. The power of your valuing will make it so. Atonement brings a reevaluation of everything you cherish, for it is the means by which the Holy Spirit can separate the false and the true, which you have accepted into your mind without distinction. Therefore, you cannot value one without the other, and guilt has become as true for you as innocence. You do not believe the Son of God is guiltless, because you see the past and see him not. When you condemn a brother, you are saying, I who was guilty choose to remain so. You have denied his freedom, and by so doing you have denied the witness unto yours. You could as easily have freed him from the past, and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him to it, and in his freedom would have been your own. Lay not his guilt upon him, for his guilt lies in his secret thoughts that he has done this unto you. Would you then teach him he is right in his delusion? The idea that the guiltless Son of God can attack himself and make himself guilty is insane. In any form, in any one, believe this not. For sin and condemnation are the same, and the belief in one is faith in the other, calling for punishment instead of love. Nothing can justify insanity, and to call for punishment upon yourself must be insane. See no one then as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of guiltlessness unto yourself. In every condemnation that you offer the Son of God lies the conviction of your own guilt. If you would have the Holy Spirit make you free of it, accept his offer of atonement for all your brothers, for so you learn that it is true for you. Remember always that it is impossible to condemn the Son of God in part. Those whom you see as guilty become the witnesses to guilt in you, and you will see it there, for it is there until it is undone. Guilt is always in your mind, which has condemned itself. Project it not, for while you do, it cannot be undone. With everyone whom you release from guilt, great joy is in heaven, where the witnesses to your fatherhood rejoice. Guilt makes you blind, for while you see one spot of guilt within you, you will not see the light. And by projecting it, the world seems dark, and shrouded in your guilt. You throw a dark veil over it, and cannot see it, because you cannot look within. You are afraid of what you would see there, but it is not there. The thing you fear is gone. If you would look within, you would see only the atonement shining in quiet and in peace upon the altar to your father. Do not be afraid to look within. The ego tells you all is black with guilt within you, and bids you not to look. Instead it bids you look upon your brothers and see the guilt in them. Yet this you cannot do without remaining blind, for those who see their brothers in the dark, and guilty in the dark in which they shroud them, are too afraid to look upon the light within. Within you is not what you believe is there, and what you put your faith in. Within you is the holy sign of perfect faith your father has in you. He does not value you as you do. He knows himself, and he knows the truth in you. He knows there is no difference, for he knows not of differences. Can you see guilt where God knows there is perfect innocence? You can deny his knowledge, but you cannot change it. Look then upon the light he placed within you, and learn that what you feared was there has been replaced with love. And from the workbook, lesson 102, I share God's will for happiness for me. You do not want to suffer. You may think it buys you something, and may still believe a little that it buys you what you want. Yet this belief is surely shaken, now at least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense. It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind. Today we try to lose its weakened hold still further, and to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence, like itself. You have been a slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy will of God. For several days we will continue to devote our practice periods to exercises planned to help you reach the happiness God's will has placed in you. Here is your home, and here your safety is. Here is your peace, and here is no fear. Here is salvation. Here is rest, at last. Begin your practice periods today with this acceptance of God's will for you. I share God's will for happiness for me, and I accept it as my function now. Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but your choice. You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice, and that you share God's will. Be happy, for your only function here is happiness. You have no need to be less loving to God's Son than He whose love created Him as loving as Himself. Besides these hourly five-minute rest, pause frequently today to tell yourself that you have now accepted happiness as your one function. And be sure that you are joining with God's will in doing this. I share God's will for happiness for me. Today I would go past the cloud of guilt that has shrouded me from the atonement. Today I am not afraid to look within and to see the innocence, the sinlessness, the guiltlessness of my mind. Today I go past all beliefs in future and past. Today I will not allow guilt to link the future to the past. I let them go. The past is gone, the future but imagined. No longer would I call upon these defenses to the Holy Instant. I open instead to the bright light of pure innocence that the Holy Spirit holds out to me. The world can give you only what you gave it. For being nothing but your own projection, it has no meaning apart from what you found in it and placed your faith in. What I have believed, I have perceived. When I have asked for something from the world, the world has asked for something from me. Today I let this go. I will accept my brothers and sisters exactly as they are, accepting the atonement in myself. Guilt once made me blind, but atonement sets me free to see with the vision of Christ. I will not be afraid of love today. I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts, and I let these thoughts of guilt go forever. Today I am open. I will to see the Christ in my brother, my sister and myself. Today I practice extending love and forgiveness and perceiving what I have found within myself, divine innocence. Today is the end of suffering, the end of pain. Today there are no more hidden secret places in the mind. I lose the world from what I thought it was as I release the belief that made it. Today I let the ego go and open to the happiness that is God's will for me. Today I will share this happiness. I will share what is God's will for me. Today is a day to be happy for my only function is happiness, to experience God's Son as God created him, to experience Spirit. I practice today with the lesson of the day. I share God's will for happiness for me. Amen.