 We continue on today with Chapter 6, The Lessons of Love. Introduction The relationship of anger to attack is obvious, but the relationship of anger to fear is not always so apparent. Anger always involves projection of separation, which must ultimately be accepted as one's own responsibility, rather than being blamed on others. Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have been attacked, that your attack is justified in return, and that you are in no way responsible for it. Given these three wholly irrational premises, the equally irrational conclusion that a brother is worthy of attack rather than love must follow, what can be expected from insane premises except an insane conclusion? The way to undo an insane conclusion is to consider the sanity of the premises on which it rests. You cannot be attacked. Attack has no justification, and you are responsible for what you believe. You have been asked to take me as your model for learning, since an extreme example is a particularly helpful learning device. Everyone teaches and teaches all the time. This is a responsibility you inevitably assume the moment you accept any premise at all, and no one can organize his life without some thought system. Once you have developed a thought system of any kind, you live by it and teach it. Your capacity for allegiance to a thought system may be misplaced, but it is still a form of faith and can be redirected. The message of the crucifixion. For learning purposes, let us consider the crucifixion again. I did not dwell on it before because of the fearful connotations you may associate with it. The only emphasis laid upon it so far has been that it was not a form of punishment. Nothing, however, can be explained in negative terms only. There is a positive interpretation of the crucifixion that is wholly devoid of fear, and therefore wholly benign in what it teaches if it is properly understood. The crucifixion is nothing more than an extreme example. Its value, like the value of any teaching device, lies solely in the kind of learning it facilitates. It can be and has been misunderstood. This is only because the fearful are apt to perceive fearfully. I have already told you that you can always call on me to share my decision and thus make it stronger. I've also told you that the crucifixion was the last useless journey of the sonship need take and that it represents release from fear to anyone who understands it. While I emphasized only the resurrection before, the purpose of the crucifixion and how it actually led to the resurrection was not clarified then. Nevertheless, it has a definite contribution to make to your own life, and if you will consider it without fear, it will help you understand your role as a teacher. You have probably reacted for years as if you were being crucified. This is a marked tendency of the separated who always refuse to consider what they have done to themselves. Projection means anger. Anger fosters assault and assault promotes fear. The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the apparent intensity of the assault of some of the sons of God upon another. This, of course, is impossible and must be fully understood as impossible. Otherwise, I cannot serve as a model for learning. Assault can ultimately be made only on the body. There is little doubt that one body can assault another and can't even destroy it. Yet, if the destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real. Its destruction, therefore, does not justify anger. To the extent to which you believe that it does, you are accepting false premises and teaching them to others. The message the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive any form of assault in persecution because you cannot be persecuted. If you respond with anger, you must be equating yourself with the destructible and are, therefore, regarding yourself insanely. I have made it perfectly clear that I am like you and you are like me, but our fundamental equality can be demonstrated only through joint decision. You are free to perceive yourself as persecuted if you choose. When you do choose to react that way, however, you might remember that I was persecuted as the world judges and did not share this evaluation for myself. And because I did not share it, I did not strengthen it. I, therefore, offered a different interpretation of attack and one which I want to share with you. If you will believe it, you will help me teach it. As I have said before, as you teach, so shall you learn. If you react as if you are persecuted, you are teaching persecution. This is not a lesson a son of God should want to teach if he is to realize his own salvation. Rather, teach your own perfect immunity, which is the truth in you, and realize that it cannot be assailed. Do not try to protect it yourself or you are believing that it is assailable. You are not asked to be crucified, which was part of my own teaching contribution. You are merely asked to follow my example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive and not to accept them as false justifications for anger. There can be no justification for the unjustifiable. Do not believe there is and do not teach that there is. Remember always that what you believe you will teach. Believe with me and we will become equal as teachers. Your resurrection is your reawakening. I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on your mind of what is already in it. God placed it there himself and so it is true forever. I believed in it and therefore accepted it as true for me. Help me to teach it to our brothers in the name of the kingdom of God, but first believe that it is true for you or you will teach amiss. My brother slept during the so-called, quote, agony in the garden, but I could not be angry with them because I knew I could not be abandoned. I am sorry when my brothers do not share my decision to hear only one voice because it weakens them as teachers and as learners. Yet I know they cannot really betray themselves or me and that is still on them that I must build my church. There is no choice in this because only you can be the foundation of God's church. A church is where an altar is and the presence of the altar is what makes the church holy. A church that does not inspire love as a hidden altar that is not serving the purpose for which God intended it. I must found his church on you because those who accept me as a model are literally my disciples. Disciples are followers and if the model they follow has chosen to save them pain in all respects, they are unwise not to follow him. I elected for your sake and mine to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault as judged by the ego does not matter. As the world judges these things but not as God knows them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn and finally killed. It was clear that this was only because of the projection of others onto me since I had not harmed anyone and had healed many. We are still equal as learners although we do not need to have equal experiences. The Holy Spirit is glad when you can learn from mine and be reawakened by them. That is their only purpose and that is the only way in which I can be perceived as the way, the truth and the life. When you hear only one voice you are never called on to sacrifice. On the contrary, by being able to hear the Holy Spirit in others you can learn from their experiences and can gain from them without experiencing them directly yourself. That is because the Holy Spirit is one and anyone who listens is inevitably led to demonstrate his way for all. You are not persecuted nor was I. You are not asked to repeat my experiences because the Holy Spirit whom we share makes this unnecessary. To use my experiences constructively, however, you must still follow my example in how to perceive them. My brothers and yours are constantly engaged in justifying the unjustifiable. My one lesson which I must teach as I learned it is that no perception that is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit can be justified. I undertook to show this was true in an extreme case merely because it would serve as a good teaching aid to those whose temptation to give in to anger and assault would not be so extreme. I will with God that none of his sons should suffer. The crucifixion cannot be shared because it is the symbol of projection but the resurrection is the symbol of sharing because the reawakening of every son of God is necessary to enable the sonship to know its wholeness. Only this is knowledge. The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear. Teach only love for that is what you are. If you interpret the crucifixion in any other way, you are using it as a weapon for assault rather than as the call for peace which it was intended. The apostles often misunderstood it and for the same reason that anyone misunderstands it. Their own imperfect love made them vulnerable to projection and out of their own fear they spoke of the, quote, wrath of God as his retaliatory weapon. Nor could they speak of the crucifixion entirely without anger because their sense of guilt had made them angry. These are some of the examples of upside-down thinking in the New Testament although its gospel is really only the message of love. If the apostles had not felt guilty, they never could have quoted me as saying, I come not to bring peace but a sword. This is clearly the opposite of everything I taught. Nor could they have described my reactions to Judas as they did if they had really understood me. I could not have said, Betray us thou the son of man with a kiss unless I believed in betrayal. The whole message of the crucifixion was simply that I did not. The, quote, punishment I was said to have called forth upon Judas was a similar mistake. Judas was my brother and a son of God as much a part of the sonship as myself. Was it likely that I would condemn him when I was ready to demonstrate that condemnation is impossible? As you read the teachings of the apostles, remember that I told them myself that there was much they would understand later because they were not wholly ready to follow me at the time. I do not want you to allow any fear to enter into the thought system toward which I am guiding you. I do not call for martyrs but for teachers. No one is punished for sins and the sons of God are not sinners. Any concept of punishment involves the projection of blame and reinforces the idea that blame is justified. The result is a lesson in blame for all behavior teaches the beliefs that motivate it. The crucifixion was the result of clearly opposed thought systems the perfect symbol of the, quote, conflict between the ego and the son of God. This conflict seems just as real now and its lessons must be learned now as well as then. I do not need gratitude but you need to develop your weakened ability to be grateful or you cannot appreciate God. He does not need your appreciation but you do. You cannot love what you do not appreciate for fear makes appreciation impossible. When you are afraid of what you are you do not appreciate it and it will therefore reject it. As a result you will teach rejection. The power of the sons of God is present all the time because they were created as creators. Their influence on each other is without limit and must be used for their joint salvation. Each one must learn to teach that all forms of rejection are meaningless. The separation is the notion of rejection. As long as you teach this you will believe it. This is not as God thinks and you must think as he thinks if you are to know him again. Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link between God the Father and his separated sons. If you will listen to his voice you will know that you cannot either hurt or be hurt and that many need your blessing to help them hear this for themselves. When you perceive only this need in them and do not respond to any other you will have learned of me and will be as eager to share your learning as I am. And from the workbook lesson 37 My holiness blesses the world. This idea contains the first glimmerings of your true function in the world or why you are here. Your purpose is to see the world through your own holiness. Thus are you and the world blessed together. No one loses. Nothing is taken away from anyone. Everyone gains through your holy vision. It signifies the end of sacrifice because it offers everyone his full due. And he is entitled to everything because it is his birthright as a son of God. There is no other way in which the idea of sacrifice can be removed from the world's thinking. Any other way of seeing will inevitably demand payment of someone or something. As a result the perceiver will lose nor will he have any idea why he is losing. Yet in his wholeness restored to his awareness through your vision your holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him. Those who see themselves as whole make no demands. Your holiness is the salvation of the world. It lets you teach the world that it is one with you, not by preaching to it, not by telling it anything, but merely by your quiet recognition that in your holiness are all things blessed along with you. Today's four longer exercise periods each to involve three to five minutes of practice begin with the repetition of the idea for today followed by a minute or so of looking about you as you apply the idea to whatever you see. My holiness blesses this chair. My holiness blesses that window. My holiness blesses this body. Then close your eyes and apply the idea to any person who occurs to you using his name and saying, My holiness blesses you. You may continue the practice period with your eyes closed. You may open your eyes again and apply the idea for today to your outer world if you so desire. You may alternate between applying the idea to what you see around you and to those who are in your thoughts or you may use it in combination of these two phases of application that you prefer. The practice period should conclude with a repetition of the idea with your eyes closed and another following immediately with your eyes open. The shorter exercises consist of repeating the idea as often as you can. It is particularly helpful to apply it silently to anyone you meet using his name as you do so. It is essential to use the idea if anyone seems to cause an adverse reaction in you. Offer him the blessing of your holiness immediately that you may learn to keep it in your own awareness. My holiness blesses the world. So today we are receiving and practicing beautiful ideas. First in the lessons of love we read that attack is impossible. Assault is impossible and then we were given a new interpretation of the crucifixion. One not merely in terms of explaining what it was not in negative terms but one that actually expressed it as a teaching of the highest lesson to be learned. Teach only love for that is what you are. Then we were told that if you interpret it in any other way that you are using it as a weapon for assault rather than the call for peace for which it was attended. So this fits in so beautifully with our lesson for the day from the workbook. My holiness blesses the world. This is how we bless the world by teaching love. It blesses our self and it blesses everyone. It truly blesses everything that we perceive. It's the purpose for our coming, our function. It is why we are here. Truly signifies the end of sacrifice because it offers everyone his full due. It offers everyone including myself everything and replacing this wedge of a belief in sacrifice with wholeness is the way that my holiness blesses the world. It is the way that my holiness is the salvation of the world, that the world is one with me, that it has not left the mind of the thinker, that it has not left the mind of the perceiver. By being holy I must have a holy perception of the entire world. So we practice specifically with everything that we perceive as we let our eyes move around the room look out on the things that we see nearby and at a distance. These lessons can be transferred to everything that I perceive and we are asked to use specific applications silently when we meet someone or even think of them by saying my holiness blesses you and including their name. So we shall practice that silently today as we go forward with every thought of a person. My holiness blesses you with every appearance of a person silently within we say my holiness blesses you as we look upon the the trees as we look upon the houses as we look upon the grass or the river we practice with everything that we perceive my holiness blesses the world.