 We continue today with chapter 15, The Holy Instant and the Attraction of God. 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 reached 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 and 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 realized and 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 that 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 holy in an instant. The reality of this relationship becomes the only truth that you could ever want. All truth is here and from the workbook Lesson 123 I thank my Father for His gifts to me. Today let us be thankful. We have come to gentler pathways and to smoother roads. There is no thought of turning back and no implacable resistance to the truth. A bit of wavering remains some small objections and a little hesitation but you can well be grateful for your gains which are far greater than you realize. A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benefit of some insight into the real extent of all the gains which you have made. The gifts you have received be glad today in loving thankfulness your Father has not left you to yourself nor let you wander in the dark alone. Be grateful He has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him in His creation. Give Him thanks today. Give thanks that He has not abandoned you and that His love forever will remain shining on you forever without change. Give thanks as well that you are changeless for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. Be grateful you are saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. Be thankful that your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God established as His Son. Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair and raise our thankful eyes no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness today in honor of the self that God has willed to be our true identity in Him. Today we smile on everyone we see and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is appointed us to do. We do not go alone and we give thanks that in our solitude a friend has come to speak the saving word of God to us. And thanks to you for listening to him. His word is soundless if it be not heard. In thanking him the thanks are yours as well. An unheard message will not save the world. However mighty be the voice that speaks however loving may the message be. Thanks be to you who heard for you become the messenger who brings his voice with you and lets it echo round and round the world. Receive the thanks of God today as you give thanks to him for he would offer you the thanks you give since he receives your gifts in loving gratitude and gives them back a thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given. He will bless your gifts by sharing them with you and so they grow in power and in strength until they fill the world with gladness and with gratitude. Receive his thanks and offer yours to him for fifteen minutes twice today and you will realize to whom you offer thanks and whom he thanks as you are thanking him. This holy half an hour given him will be returned to you in terms of years for every second. Power to save the world eons more quickly for your thanks to him. Receive his thanks and you will understand how lovingly he holds you in his mind how deep and limitless his care for you how perfect is his gratitude to you. Remember hourly to think of him and give him thanks for everything he gave his son that he might rise above the world remembering his father and his self. Amen.