 We continue today with Chapter 8, The Treasure of God. We are all the joint will of the sonship whose wholeness is for all. We begin the journey back by setting out together and gather our brothers as we continue together. Every gain in our strength is offered for all, so they too can lay aside their weakness and add their strength to us. God's welcome waits for us all and He will welcome us as I am welcoming you. Forget not the kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can add nothing to the power and the glory of God and His holy sons, but it can blind the sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true. I have come to tell you that the choice of which is true is not yours to make. If it were, you would have destroyed yourself. Yet God did not will the destruction of His creations, having created them for eternity. His will has saved you not from yourself, but from your illusion of yourself. He has saved you for yourself. Let us glorify Him whom the world denies, for over His kingdom the world has no power. No one created by God can find joy in anything except the eternal. Not because He is deprived of anything else, but because nothing else is worthy of Him. What God and His sons create is eternal, and in this and this only is their joy. Listen to the story of the prodigal son and learn what God's treasure is and yours. The son of a loving father left his home and thought he had squandered everything for nothing of any value, although he had not understood its worthlessness at the time. He was ashamed to return to his father because he thought he had hurt him. Yet when he came home, the father welcomed him with joy, because the son himself was his father's treasure. He wanted nothing else. God wants only his son because his son is his only treasure. You want your creations as he wants his. Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation. They do not leave you any more than you left your Creator, but they extend your creation as God extended Himself to you. Can the creations of God Himself take joy in what is not real? And what is real except the creations of God and those that are created like His? Your creations love you as you love your Father for the gift of creation. There is no other gift that is eternal, and therefore there is no other gift that is true. How then can you accept anything else or give anything else and expect joy in return? And what else but joy would you want? You made neither yourself nor your function. You made only the decision to be unworthy of both. Yet you cannot make yourself unworthy because you are the treasure of God and what He values is valuable. There can be no question of its worth because its value lies in God's sharing Himself with it and establishing its value forever. Your function is to add to God's treasure by creating yours. His will to you is His will for you. He would not withhold creation from you because His joy is in it. You cannot find joy except as God does. His joy lay in creating you and He extends His fatherhood to you so that you can extend yourself as He did. You do not understand this because you do not understand Him. No one who does not accept His function can understand what it is and no one can accept His function unless He knows what He is. Creation is the will of God. His will created you to create. Your will was not created separate from His and so you must will as He wills. An unwilling will does not mean anything. Being a contradiction in terms that actually means nothing. When you think you are unwilling to will with God you are not thinking God's will is thought. It cannot be contradicted by thought. God does not contradict Himself and His sons who are like Him cannot contradict themselves or Him. Yet their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God's Son if they so choose. This choice does make the Son's function unknown to Him but never to His Creator. And because it is not unknown to His Creator it is forever knowable to Him. There is no question but one you should ever ask yourself, do I want to know my Father's will for me? He will not hide it. He has revealed it to me because I asked it of Him and learned of what He had already given. Our function is to work together because apart from each other we cannot fulfill function at all. The whole power of God's Son lies in all of us but not in any of us alone. God would not have us be alone because He does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son and gave Him the power to create with Him. Our creations are as holy as we are and we are the sons of God Himself as holy as He is. Through our creations we extend our love and thus increase the joy of the Holy Trinity. You do not understand this because you are God's own treasure. Do not regard yourself as valuable. Given this belief you cannot understand anything. I share with God the knowledge of the value He puts upon you. My devotion to you is of Him being born of my knowledge of myself and Him. We cannot be separated. Whom God has joined cannot be separated and God had joined all His sons with Himself. Can you be separated from your life and your being? The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the conditions of truth but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions but truth will dawn upon you of itself. What God has willed for you is yours. He has given His will to His treasure whose treasure it is. Your heart lies where your treasure is as His does. You who are our beloved of God are wholly blessed. Learn this of me and free the Holy Will of all those who are as blessed as you are. And from the workbook, 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 a statement of pride, of arrogance or 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 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 the 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. Today begin 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. I am the light of the world. We begin this acceleration in accepting the truth beyond words, beyond descriptions, happiness, joy. I am reminded of the Oman and Shanti song. I am the light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am here. I am the light of the world. Think into that today. Let that happy thought roll through your mind soar today, soar high, soar in the truth. Do not look back today. Today is the day of accepting the magnificence of identity in God. The body becomes a distant memory. The earth becomes a distant fading memory. You soar higher and higher into the light of truth, oneness, love. The text reminds us today that we are the treasure of God. We are the joint will of the sonship whose wholeness is for all. Today we lay aside all weakness. We accept the strength of God and God's will for us. Forget not the kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. Our strength is offered for all. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true. I am come to tell you that the choice of which is true is not yours to make. God did not will the destruction of His creations. Having created them for eternity, His will has saved you. Not from yourself, but from your illusion of yourself. He has saved you for yourself. Let us glorify Him whom the world denies, for over His kingdom the world has no power. No one created by God can find joy in anything except the eternal. We pause to remember the story of the prodigal son remembering what God's treasure is, remembering what our treasure is. Spirit is the gift. Spirit is our home. The son lives in the father and cannot leave the father. This is what awakening means. This is the meaning of Self-realization. This is enlightenment. I am as God created me. I am the light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am here.